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Exploring the relationship between student identities and

academic success in undergraduate computer

science education

Peter Chalk, Faculty of Computing,

London Metropolitan University (IPSE EdD)Presentation at University of Kent, 11 June 2012

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A subject in crisis?

• Industry, profession and government putting the spotlight on IT education in schools

– ‘Running on empty: the failure to teach K-12 computer science in the digital age’ (ACM/ CSTA, 2010):

– “policies... are deeply confused, conflicted or inadequate” (ibid, p6)

• Michael Gove at BETT 2012 (Guardian 12.1.12, p9) wants:

– “more rigorous computer science curriculum... [to meet] high standards of intellectual depth and practical value”

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A known problem in computer science education in HE

• Failure, drop out, transfer: Reports include:

– Beaubouef, T. and Mason, J. (2005) ‘Why the high attrition rate for computer science students: Some thoughts and observations’, ACM SIGCSE Inroads Bulletin, 37.2: 103–106.

• Research into CS as a subject includes:

– ‘Predictors of success in a first programming course’ (Simon, Fincher, S & Robins, A: ACE 2006)

– “We believe that learning to program is problematic”

– Discusses predictors, eg ‘comfort level’ & ‘deep learning’

– “Further exploration of possible diagnostic tasks is required”

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Other factors include

• Profile of applicants– 38% working class compared to 30% in the

sector (CaSE report cited in THE 15.3.12)– 17% women (NSF report cited in Ong, M:

CACM July 2011)• NSS satisfaction scores (HEA 2012)

– e.g. Unistats for Kent, – 80% for CS, 88% for uni

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Aim of research

• To develop an understanding of the relationship between students' identities, experiences and success in undergraduate computer science education (CSE),...

• by exploring students' perceptions and experiences, and...

• by examining the disciplinary/ institutional cultures and practices, of CSE.

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Aim of this talk

• Present new primary data mainly in the form of extracts from interview transcripts, and...

• propose approaches to analysing it. • It is hoped that findings will contribute to

understandings of success, failure and dropout in CSE, with implications for policy and practice.

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The theoretical framework

• Develop Bourdieu's concepts of habitus*, capitals, field and practice,...

• as applied to understanding relationships between student identities and the field of CSE,...

• eg, post-Bourdieuan framework suggested by the work of Lousie Archer and others.

* ‘internalised structures, schemes of perception, conception and action common to all members of the same group’ (Outline of a theory of practice, 1977, p86)

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Louise Archer (2010) on habitus

• “... the notion of family (science) habitus is being deployed as a tool to examine the extent to which families construct a collective relationship with science sense through their everyday attitudes and practices and the extent to which this is shaped by their possession of particular sorts of economic, social and cultural capital.” (BERA paper) [my emphasis]

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Research methodology• Qualititative based on open-question interviews:

– student life history narrative, motivation & expectations, ambitions & aspirations,

– student biographical data,– staff on CS identity, how subject constructed and what

they look for in student interviews,– Plus documents/ observations from universities visited.

• Diverse mix (purposive sample) but NOT intended to be ‘representative’ in any way – this research is not attempting to draw conclusions based on sampling in any form. It is looking at constructions of identities through authentic narratives. A grounded analysis approach.

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Interviews completed

• Students (20 in total)

– 6 at pre-92 (2 female) and 14 at post-92 (3 female)

– 13 doing BSc or MEng CS; 1 did BSc CS, now MSc; 1 did BSc CS with Games Tech; 2 doing BSc Computing; 1 HND Computing; 2 BSc BIT

– At ‘Downtown’ and ‘City Centre’ inner-city post-92, ‘Castletown’ midlands city post-92,

– And ‘Uptown’ and ‘Central’ inner-city pre-92

• CS staff (four) one pre-92, three post-92 (all 4 male) from unis where most students were interviewed.

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Example questions

• Why did you choose computer science?• What are your expectations of the course?• What have been your interests, or hobbies?• Were there any influences over your choice

of study, interests or ambition?• What aspect of computers interests you?• Some students find computing difficult,

why do you think this is?

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Responses coded in NVivo for ‘Why choose Computer Science?’

• <Internals\Interviews - Students\Alon Castletown> - § 2 references coded [6.09% Coverage] Reference 1 - 4.62% Coverage

• I suppose I really like informatics but not just that, informatics, maths and physics. I was unsure what to choose, between something in computing or aerospace engineering. But at the moment it seems like computing is more right for me.

• Reference 2 - 1.47% Coverage• Computing, in itself, I really liked it and I really want to be good at it.

• <Internals\Interviews - Students\Asif Castletown> - § 1 reference coded [1.14% Coverage]

• Reference 1 - 1.14% Coverage• As a child I liked, loved, computers, I was just fascinated by them. So

that’s why I chose computer science.

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Coding fragments

to free nodes:

letting the data

speak for itself:

answers to

question ‘why

choose CS?’

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Coded to ‘Want to work in computing’• Alicia: “I’m looking forward to work in computing, a masters and a

PhD in software engineering. I’m really looking forward to that... I’m thinking of working for google, on new software, maybe at Microsoft, developing games, databases, new graphical movies, maybe I end up doing that, at Hollywood, 3d movies.”

• Asif: “Freelance programmer, maybe for a company such as Microsoft or Sony, or IBM, Intel, working with those kind of major companies, making programs for them. In my sandwich year I’m hoping to work for a company local, then from there, once I’ve finished my degree, go on to a different country and work for a company over there.”

• Calvin: “Yes, as a coder. The course is focussed on exam results, not skills, it’s about passing exams, not making sure they understand the concepts, which is what ruins the whole system really... I’d rather be a coder, I’d enjoy being a junior programmer because I like the coding aspect a lot. I’d like to be a higher level software engineer and design at a higher level.”

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Data on the theme of influence (category family)

• ‘Paul’ (student at Uptown Uni) on his mother: “...there is an Indian researcher in Newcastle (Mishal?) who works on computer system learning and I think he calls it the ‘granny effect’ – someone who has no idea about the process at all but just stands somewhere quietly and admires you can have a substantial benefit to you. So I guess that was the effect, she admired what I did, and obviously I was encouraged by that. Although she had no idea what I did. [laughs]” [my emphasis]

• “I actually tried to teach her at one point”.• Middle class, family influence, not explicitly ‘computer

science’ habitus (‘cultural capital’)

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‘Matt’, ‘Asif’ and ‘Rupert’ (Castletown Uni) on family

• [Matt’s grandfather] “is quite into hardware stuff, he’s an electrician, and I got some stuff from him, and I was always interested in how stuff works. You can’t understand how it works without taking it apart” [my emphasis]

• Asif’s brother is 6 years older and “works for a computer company. He brings new hardware into the house, hard drives and motherboards and everything and I was just like to learn [sic], what’s going on with them.”

• Rupert: “I have a smaller sister, she’s 8 so she can’t help me, but I helped her so now when she is on the computer she uses the internet, Mozilla, she goes to games or paint, she really likes it, I motivate her, she watched me how I work and when I left it she came to use the computer. [animated]”

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Practical experience & interest: ‘Denise’

• Denise (NVQ car mechanics, ‘City Centre Uni’, single parent, council estate, described her interviewer as ‘giving her a chance’) exhibits both family and ‘how things work’ themes:

– “My granddad was an inventor... Probably once a week but he used to take down to the… he actually had three workshops in his garden... [And on games:] Meccano, yea, my granddad had loads of meccano at his house, the old metal kind. And my bike which I constantly took the chain off and games, strangely any game that involved a lot of money [laugh] like monopoly ”

– “I was finding it quite hard to learn stuff that you can’t touch. So I did car mechanics, obviously you can take the engine apart.”

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Ability: music

• Denise: “outside of college I’m a songwriter and a DJ and into all sorts of music things so, although I wasn’t into music lessons at school, music is a huge part of my life; I’m the vocalist, I guess, so my voice is my instrument...”

• Do you read music?• Denise: No, never learnt anything like that, learning

languages I seem to struggle with, I guess because I’m not touching it, I’m not holding it”

• Graham (Central pre92): “[my favourite school subject was] technology based music, so kind of like composing on computers and stuff... because you had to know about how sort of media instruments connected to the computer and how would you go about doing that if you weren’t able to do that in that standard way”

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Competence/ expectation & understanding

“I expect to be learning everything I need to know about computers, the architecture, the inside and the outside, the programming and the hardware, everything and in the end I’d be walking out knowing more than the average student who’s done a similar course at the university, that’s what I’ll be learning.” (Asif, Castletown)

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Performance

• “When I was 14 two classmates and I developed an adventure game – we did all the coding in Direct X and whatever, in C++ for the Windows system, and we basically wrote an adventure game called Monkey Island, but set in our school, and all the teachers were participating and it was real fun.” (Paul, Uptown)

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Recognition/ image

• “Q Do you help friends or family with their computers?– Rupert (Castletown): All the time [laugh] all the time. I

always succeed and they are happy, all the time. In high school I had to do networking in my informatics class. And when a computer crashed and something went wrong I had to go and fix it.”

• “Q Do people ask you to help them?– Alon (Castletown): Yes, sure, when they get a virus,

when someone intrudes, how can they prevent that, when they want new windows installed, things like that.”

• Paul (Uptown) at 14: “we had a market that we could cater to, it was a commercial project and it worked. Later I did a lot of web applications for ... orchestras, music groups”

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Why do students drop out? Student view

• “Half the time there were only two of us [in our group] being relied upon – when we were talking these were just oblivious to what’s going on, they didn’t have the motivation and just chose the course because they had no other option maybe.” (Asif, Castletown)

• “That’s why I wonder about these people who are not sure about the course, why they even bother to sign up for it.” (Matt, Castletown)

• “I always thought that kids coming to uni at 18 are into computer games, they like gadgets and electrical things and want the coolest things so they think ‘I’ll do computing’. They find it’s not what they expected, it’s a way of thinking that’s completely alien to them, it’s very, very strict, logical way of thinking. They find it boring and they can’t cope with it and they drop out.” (Calvin, Downtown).

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Wrong choice of course – staff view

“...they apply for courses without a clear idea of where they are going.” (‘Dennis’, staff, City Centre Uni)

“... students have a limited understanding of what computer science is.” (‘James’, staff, Uptown Uni)

Considered important enough to Dennis who says he (might) reject any student who “doesn’t appear to have made any attempt to have found out about the content of the course”

James says he does not make decisions himself, but makes recommendations based on a range of interview questions. (His opinion may affect borderline decisions).

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Wrong choice of student? Staff view (Arthur, Castletown post92)

• “I took role of Acting Head for a couple of years, donkey’s years ago, and at the end of my couple of years the Head came back and said: “what was the worse thing that we were doing?” I said: “the recruitment is awful”, and that’s when he put me in charge of it. And one of the things that we did at that stage was that we went back to having individual interviews which had a huge effect, and we went back to having an aptitude test. And all we were actually trying to do was to get rid of the bottom tail of the distribution curve. Management, of course, got terribly nervous that we might end up turning people down that might be quite good.”

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‘Computer science identity’? Staff view

• Dennis (City Centre, post92) “...any sort of analytical ability so anyone who has been interested in any way in finding out how things work with a view to copying them or improving them or making use of them.”

• James (Uptown, pre92) “blend of formal thinking and mathematics and applying it to applications, and wanting to do something useful.”

• Arthur (Castletown, post92) “you have to be a little bit techy, you’ve got to be interested in how it all hangs together and works... who can sequence things and have a little bit of abstract thought”

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• Ambition/ Aspiration/ Desire/ Imagination/ Passion

• Confidence/ Early years/ Enjoyment• Expectation/ Motivation• Identity/ Image/ Recognition/ Performance/

Competence• Influence/ Family/ Friend/ School• Interest/ Curiosity/ Puzzles/ Games/ Hobbies• Experience/ Skill/ Maths/ Practical/ Technical/

Programming• Drop-out/ Failure/ Transfer/ Wrong choice

Coding framework (work in progress)

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Conclusions no; questions yes!

• Are Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital, habitus etc useful?

• Can they be extended beyond his ideas about class?– eg ‘institutional habitus’ (applying to field of CSE)– eg ‘family habitus’ (Archer)– eg ‘computer science habitus’– Does the data support any of the above?

• Other models of identity a better fit?

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Another useful approach? Model of science identity

• From Carlone & Johnson (2007) on women of colour in science education (cite Wenger on community of practice):– “She is competent; she demonstrates

meaningful knowledge and understanding of science content and is motivated to understand the world scientifically. She also has the requisite skills to perform for others her competence with scientific practices (e.g., uses of scientific tools, fluency with all forms of scientific talk and ways of acting, and interacting in various formal and informal scientific settings). Further, she recognizes herself, and gets recognized by others, as a ‘science person’.”

– See examples coded this way on earlier slides (19-21)

– Model helps to identify/ organise themes in the data?

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References not in text

• Archer, L (2010) ‘Science is not for me?’: exploring children’s and families’ engagement with science through the lens of identity’, BERA 1st-4th September, University of Warwick.

• Carlone, H B & Johnson, A (2007) ‘Understanding the Science Experiences of Successful Women of Color: Science Identity as an Analytic Lens’, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, VOL. 44, NO. 8, PP. 1187–1218.