Emergence of computing education as a research discipline
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School of Science |
Doctoral thesis (article-based)
| Defence date: 2015-11-18
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Author
Date
2015
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
98 + app. 122
Series
Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS, 150/2015
Abstract
This thesis investigates the changing nature and status of computing education research (CER) over a number of years, specifically addressing the question of whether computing education can legitimately be considered a research discipline. The principal approach to addressing this question is an examination of the published literature in computing education conferences and journals. A classification system was devised for this literature, one goal of the system being to clearly identify some publications as research – once a suitable definition of research was established. When the system is applied to a corpus of publications, it becomes possible to determine the proportion of those publications that are classified as research, and thence to detect trends over time and similarities and differences between publication venues. The classification system has been applied to all of the papers over several years in a number of major computing education conferences and journals. Much of the classification was done by the author alone, and the remainder by a team that he formed in order to assess the inter-rater reliability of the classification system. This classification work led to two subsequent projects, led by Associate Professor Judy Sheard and Professor Lauri Malmi, that devised and applied further classification systems to examine the research approaches and methods used in the work reported in computing education publications. Classification of nearly 2000 publications over ranges of 3-10 years uncovers both strong similarities and distinct differences between publication venues. It also establishes clear evidence of a substantial growth in the proportion of research papers over the years in question. These findings are considered in the light of published perspectives on what constitutes a discipline of research, and lead to a confident assertion that computing education can now rightly be considered a discipline of research.Description
Supervising professor
Malmi, Lauri, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, FinlandThesis advisor
Malmi, Lauri, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, FinlandKeywords
computing education research, publications, journals, conferences, empirical research, Simon's system
Other note
Parts
- [Publication 1]: Simon. 2007. A classification of recent Australasian computing education publications. Taylor & Francis, UK. Computer Science Education, volume 17, issue 3, pages 155-169. ISSN 0899-3408 (print)/ISSN 1744-5175 (online). DOI 10.1080/08993400701538021.
- [Publication 2]: Simon. 2008. Koli Calling comes of age: an analysis. In: Raymond Lister, Simon (eds). Seventh Baltic Sea Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling 2007), Koli, Finland, November 2007. Australian Computer Society. CRPIT, Australia, volume 88, pages 119-126. ISSN 1445-1336. ISBN 978-1-920682-69-9.
- [Publication 3]: Simon, Judy Sheard, Angela Carbone, Michael de Raadt, Margaret Hamilton, Raymond Lister, Errol Thompson. 2008. Eight years of computing education papers at NACCQ. In: Samuel Mann, Mike Lopez (eds). 21st Annual Conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications, Auckland, New Zealand, July 2008. NACCQ, New Zealand, pages 101-107. ISSN 1176-8053.
- [Publication 4]: Simon, Angela Carbone, Michael de Raadt, Raymond Lister, Margaret Hamilton, Judy Sheard. 2008. Classifying computing education papers: process and results. In: Raymond Lister, Michael Caspersen, Mike Clancy (eds). Fourth International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2008), Sydney, Australia, September 2008. ACM, USA, pages 161-171. ISBN 978-1-60558-216-0. DOI 10.1145/1404520.1404536.
- [Publication 5]: Simon. 2009. Ten years of the Australasian Computing Education Conference. In: Margaret Hamilton, Tony Clear (eds). Eleventh Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2009), Wellington, New Zealand, January 2009. Australian Computer Society. CRPIT, Australia, volume 95, pages 157-163. ISSN 1445-1336. ISBN 978-1-920682-76-7.
- [Publication 6]: Simon. 2009. Informatics in Education and Koli Calling: a comparative analysis. Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Lithuania. Informatics in Education, volume 8, number 1, pages 101-114. ISSN 1648-5831.
- [Publication 7]: Judy Sheard, Simon, Margaret Hamilton, Jan Lönnberg. 2009. Analysis of research into the teaching and learning of programming. In: Mike Clancy, Michael Caspersen, Raymond Lister (eds). Fifth International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2009), Berkeley, USA, August 2009. ACM, USA, pages 93-104. ISBN 978-1-60558-615-1. DOI 10.1145/1584322.1584334.
- [Publication 8]: Lauri Malmi, Judy Sheard, Simon, Roman Bednarik, Juha Helminen, Ari Korhonen, Niko Myller, Juha Sorva, Ahmad Taherkhani. 2010. Characterizing research in computing education: a preliminary analysis of the literature. In: Michael Caspersen, Mike Clancy, Kathryn Sanders (eds). Sixth International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2010), Aarhus, Denmark, August 2010. ACM, USA, pages 3-11. ISBN 978-1-4503-0257-9. DOI 10.1145/1839594.1839597.
- [Publication 9]: Simon. 2013. Olympiads in Informatics – the journal’s first six years. Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Lithuania. Olympiads in Informatics, volume 7, pages 113-122. ISSN 1822-7732.
- [Publication 10]: Lauri Malmi, Judy Sheard, Simon, Roman Bednarik, Juha Helminen, Ari Korhonen, Niko Myller, Juha Sorva, Ahmad Taherkhani. 2014. Theoretical underpinnings of computing education research – what is the evidence? In: Quintin Cutts, Beth Simon, Brian Dorn (eds). Tenth International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2014), Glasgow, Scotland, August 2014. ACM, USA, pages 27-34. ISBN 978-1-4503-2755-8. DOI 10.1145/2632320.2632358.
