Search results for "Pedagogy"
showing 10 items of 1810 documents
On the motivations to enroll in doctoral studies in Computer Science — A comparison of PhD program models
2013
While student motivation has been intensively researched, only a few studies cover motivation at doctoral level and even less focus on doctoral education in Computer Science. In this paper we investigate the motivation of graduate students to pursue doctoral studies specifically in Computer Science. We interviewed 63 doctoral students, from two different doctoral models (traditional and structured) in Finland and Austria, on their initial reasons and experiences that led them to enroll in doctoral studies. We identified five disjoint main motivational drivers that relate with different aspects of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Together with a measure of the strength of their initial mo…
Revisiting rainfall to explore exam questions and performance on CS1
2015
The Rainfall problem comprises small tasks that have been used to investigate student performance in introductory programming. We conducted several kinds of analyses to inform our understandings of student performance in CS1 relating to this problem. We analyzed implementation approaches and program errors, as in related studies, and also explored the role of test writing vis-a-vis the most common student error. Finally, using correlation analyses and manual inspection of the exam answers, we studied how well the Rainfall problem served as an exam question. The students' implementation choices reflected their familiarity with particular loop constructs, while the single most common error co…
Teaching programming by emphasizing self-direction: How did students react to the active role required of them?
2013
Lecturing is known to be a controversial form of teaching. With massed classrooms, in particular, it tends to constrain the active participation of students. One of the remedies applied to programming education is to use technology that can vitalize interaction in the classroom, while another is to base teaching increasingly on programming activities. In this article, we present the first results of an exploratory study, in which we teach programming without lectures, exams, or grades, by heavily emphasizing programming activity, and, in a pedagogical sense, student self-direction. This article investigates how students reacted to the active role required of them and what issues emerged in …
Issues with a course that emphasizes self-direction
2013
In this paper, we examine a master's level course that emphasizes self-direction on the part of students. The course is run by weekly group assignments and requires independent work such that only one mandatory classroom session is arranged each week. Our specific research interests are how students responded to the setting of this kind and whether they demonstrated self-direction during the course. We surveyed the students' view of the course, their group work experience, and their study habits, and analyzed the resultant survey data for themes. The results suggest that while the pass rate was considerably high and the course was regarded as well-organized by the students, there were sever…
High school students' perspective to university CS1
2013
This paper presents a qualitative study of a school-university collaborative project where a game-themed CS1 course was offered as-is to high school students. Our specific interest was to explore the students' experiences with the university level course. Our analyses indicate that immediate and regular support was highly important for student performance, as support of this kind could mitigate issues related to students' orientation towards the high workload of the course. Students who showed academic interest were likely to pass, whereas students lacking self-direction or work efficiency were likely to drop out. Both passed and drop-outs found the course to be a good learning experience. …
Understanding differences among coding club students
2014
Scholars and instructors have been carrying out a multitude of actions to increase students' interest in computer science during the past years. Still, there is a need for knowledge on how these attempts develop student interest. In this qualitative study, we construct illustrative categories out of students who have attended our K-12 coding club and game programming summer course activities. We found four categories: Inactivity, Lack of self-direction, Experimenting, and Professionalism. We also briefly project this abstraction onto a four-phase model of interest development.
Using Video Conferencing and Video Recordings for Upper Secondary Distance Teaching: Teachers' View Points
2016
In Finland the “Isoverstas” (formely ISOverkosto) network of schools coordinates the development of upper secondary distance learning services. The community actually is quite extensive with 65 member schools. In this paper we introduce the results related using synchronous and asynchronous online video resources for distance teaching. The topic is approached broadly at the level of schools and different support services as well as the pedagogical practices of individual teachers. The research data consists of wiki stories written by teachers, the interviews of selected teachers, and an online survey. Data-based content analysis was chosen as the main analysis method with the aim of highlig…
Making group processes explicit to student
2014
This article considers student learning about group work in the context of project courses where student groups work under realistic expectations. Based on the literature, justice is explicated as a group work concept and regarded as a professional skill that can be practiced. Preliminary student feedback on teaching through continuous discussions on justice are presented together with teacher experiences.
Career Transitions of eSports Athletes : A Proposal for a Research Framework
2017
eSports has boomed, the number of eSport athletes has grown rapidly, and many teenagers aspire to a have career in eSports. However, eSports athletes' careers involve many problems, such as career-entry difficulties, straining life habits, burnout, premature retirement, and post-career dilemmas. Despite a growing research interest in eSports, a void of knowledge exists regarding eSports athletes' career aspects. To address the gap in research, this paper aims to take an initial step by proposing a framework for eSports athletes' career transitions. The framework combines two approaches from sport psychology and sport literature. The framework can help eSports athletes, coaches, and other st…
Educational Technology Goes Mobile
2018
Recent decades have revealed that the digital educational technology that is expected to revolutionise schooling for generations to come, is fraught with challenges. One major challenge is that educational systems vastly vary between cultures and countries. The differences start from the conceptualisation of education and school. It is, therefore, quite inaccurate to handle education as a universal concept. In this article the authors evade generalisation by discussing the use of mobile technology in the schools of one single, relatively homogenous nation: Finland. The backbone of their analysis is the core national curriculum of basic education. The appropriateness of mobile technology in …