✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 1 University of the Witwatersrand,Johannesburg School of Computer Science Computer Science Education Research at Wits Vashti Galpin vashti@cs.wits.ac.za http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 2 Introduction and outline • motivation – better teaching, equity issues • national and international links including ACM-W Ambassador, ACM/IEEE PFG I curriculum chair • Masters Computer Science Education course • overview of School’s research • results of – gender research – evaluation of Introduction to Research Methods – evaluation of first year curriculum ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 3 Curriculum and teaching methodology • first year curriculum, diverse backgrounds [Mueller, Rock and Sanders 1990, 1993; Sanders and Mueller 1994, 1999, 2000] • evaluation of first year curriculum • evaluation of Honours Introduction to Research Meth- ods [Galpin, Hazelhurst, Mueller and Sanders 1999a, 1999b, 1999c] • comparison of institutions [Daniels, Gal-Ezer, Sanders and Teague 1996; Sanders and Hedetniemi 1998; Sanders 1997b] ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 4 Curriculum and teaching methodology cont. • role of programming in the curriculum [Machanick 1998a, 2000a] • Bloom’s taxonomy and skills hierarchy [Machanick 1998c, 1998d, 2000b, 2000c] • software engineering [Baber 1998] ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 5 Teaching algorithms and programming • ALEX: using pseudo code to express and execute algo- rithms [Pyott and Sanders 1991a, 1991b, 1991c] • AAPT: a simple program animator [Sanders and Gopal 1991a, 1991b] • animating recursion [Wilcocks and Sanders 1994] • teaching programming using values [Mueller 1992] • abstraction first approach to programming [Machanick 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998b, 1999, 2001] • empirical analysis of algorithms [Sanders 2000a, 2000b] ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 6 Other research • mentoring and peer-tutoring [Sanders 1995a, 1995b, 1997a] • general articles [Galpin 1992a; Sanders 1992; Machanick 2000d] • gender [Galpin 1992b; Galpin and Sanders 1993; Sanders and Galpin 1994; Herbert and Sanders 1999; Herbert 2000] ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 7 Gender – monitoring • Wits [Galpin 1992b; Galpin and Sanders 1993; Herbert and Sanders 1999; Herbert 2000] – BSc and BSc Hons, 1986 – 1998, between 24% and 31%, average 27%, no clear trends – trends, 1993 – 1998 ∗ increase in Black female and male students, actual & percentage ∗ decrease in White male students, percentage ∗ changes in class sizes • national statistics: ACM-W Ambassador webpage ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 8 Gender – attitudes • research into attitudes to computer science of first year Faculty of Science students [Sanders and Galpin 1994] – males registered for CS I, more informal and less formal exposure, more confidence – females registered for CS I, more formal exposure, less confidence – males not registered for CS I, less exposure, more negative perceptions – females not registered for CS I, more female role models, more games ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 9 Gender – role models • research into role models for first year Faculty of Science students [Herbert 2000] – lack of positive role models – male dominated but women can learn – perception of good careers – confusion about what computer science is ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 10 First year curriculum evaluation • current research – first year curriculum [Mueller et al. 1993] [Sanders and Mueller 1994, Sanders and Mueller 2000] ∗ build from fundamentals ∗ give overview of computer science ∗ emphasis is not programming ∗ does not favour those with computing experience – how perceptions of computers and computer science change during the first year curriculum – focus on gender and race ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 11 Research methods course evaluation • Honours level course to support research project • evaluation by students of usefulness for research [Galpin, Hazelhurst, Mueller and Sanders 1999a, 1999b, 1999c] – mostly positive – modifications to course – evaluation of modifications • beneficial side-effect: approached by UNISA for course material ✫ ✪ ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 12 Conclusion • School of Computer Science – wide range of Computer Science Education research – ongoing research – informs teaching practices – important international and national links – Masters course – support for this research – recognition of this research ✫ ✪
✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 13 References [Baber 1998] R.L. Baber. Software Engineering Education Issues and Alternatives. Technical Report TR-Wits-CS-1998-1, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwater- srand, May 1998. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/research/pubs.html . [Daniels et al. 1996] M. Daniels, J. Gal-Ezer, I.D. Sanders, and G.J. Teague. Teaching com- puter science: experiences from four continents. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin , 28(1):102–106, 1996. (Proceedings of the 27th SIGCSE Technical Symposium). [Galpin and Sanders 1993] V. Galpin and I. Sanders. Gender imbalances in computer science at the University of the Witwatersrand. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin , 25(4):2–4, December 1993. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/GS93.html . [Galpin et al. 1999a] V.C. Galpin, S. Hazelhurst, C. Mueller, and I. Sanders. In- troducing research methods to computer science Honours students. South African Computer Journal , 24:258–263, November 1999. (An experience paper from the Proceedings of SAICSIT ’99, Hartebeespoort, South Africa, 17-19 November 1999) http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/GHMS99c.html . [Galpin et al. 1999b] V.C. Galpin, S. Hazelhurst, C. Mueller, and I. Sanders. A survey of the effects of a fourth year Introduction to Research Methods course. Technical Report TR- Wits-CS-1999-14, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 1999. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/GHMS99b.html . [Galpin et al. 1999c] V.C. Galpin, S. Hazelhurst, M. Mueller, and I. Sanders. Experiences of introducing research methods to Honours students. In T. Mc Donald and P.J. Blig- ✫ ✪ naut, editors, Proceedings of the 29th Conference of the Southern African Computer Lectur- ✬ ✩ Science Faculty Workshop 2001 Computer Science Education Research at Wits 14 ers’ Association (SACLA ’99) , pages 51–56, Golden Gate, South Africa, 27-29 June 1999. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/GHMS99a.html . [Galpin 1992a] V. Galpin. Essays on computer science education. Technical Report TR- WITS-CS-1992-03, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/Gal92a.html . [Galpin 1992b] V. Galpin. Gender and computer science education. Technical Report TR- Wits-CS-1992-05, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~vashti/pubs/Gal92c.html . [Herbert and Sanders 1999] T.S. Herbert and I. D. Sanders. Comment on Gender and Pop- ulation Group Statistics in the Computer Science Department at Wits. Technical Report TR-Wits-CS-1999-15, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, December 1999. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/research/pubs.html . [Herbert 2000] T.S. Herbert. Women Role Models in Computer Science at the University of the Witwatersrand. Technical Report TR-Wits-CS-2000-16, MSc Research Report, Department of Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2000. [Machanick 1995] P. Machanick. From Modula-2 to C++: Advanced Programming with Class. In Proceedings of the 25th SACLA Conference , pages 175–180, June 1995. http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~philip/papers/sacla95-m2toCpp.html . [Machanick 1996] P. Machanick. From Data Abstraction to Algorithms. In Proceedings of the 26th SACLA Conference , pages 65–74, Bakubung, June 1996. Published with revisions in CompuTek News, 3(3), September 1996 http://www.cs.wits.ac.za/~philip/papers/sacla96-abstr.html . ✫ ✪ [Machanick 1997] P. Machanick. The Abstraction-First Approach to Encour-
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