This thesis argues that an AS model in computer science needs to be independent of a BS model because their student populations are distinct. The first two years of a BS model cannot be successfully copied in the AS environment. The AS model curriculum must begin at a different level while also providing competencies comparable to those in the first two years of a BS curriculum.Three questions had to be addressed before an AS model could be formulated. 1) What is an AS in computer science? Specific attention was given to the AA, AAS, BA and BS degrees, along with computer engineering, information systems, systems analysis and data processing majors. 2) How does the student population of the AS differ from other degrees? Compared to their BS counterpart, the AS population is weighted toward female, older, ethnicly diverse, mobile, part-time, remedial students who have additional responsibilities. 3) Lastly, is there a need for standardization? An unequivocable yes was the answer. After exploring these questions a model was presented.The proposed model attempted to address the primary goals of the educational, industrial and accreditation organizations (AACJC, ACM and CSAB). A very explicit description of the model was followed by two implementations. / Department of Computer Science

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M.Ed. / The contents of curricula are necessarily exposed to dynamic changes. Development of curricula should be carried out at base level, that is, in the school and in the classroom. If all levels of education and the community are involved, each pupil as well as the community will reap the benefits of curricula and syllabi that keep abreast of the demands of our time. To be able to control reality implies greater control of the computer. Knowledge of the fast growing science of the computer could open many doors for those who are eager to learn, while the same doors will remain closed for those who do not adapt fast enough to the changing demands of the community. The high number of pupils that discontinue Computer Studies (as a 7th subject) and the proposals to combine Computer Studies with other subjects have necessitated an in-depth evaluation of the curricula. The evaluation models of Kruger, Stufflebeam, Pratt and Stake are focalised on the community's contribution to curriculum renewal. The contribution of the school, where the curriculum starts functioning, must not be underestimated. The curriculum becomes especially relevant and of interest to the community at school and classroom level. Contents of curricula must be revised regularly and scientifically on all levels. The revision and updating of contents must be preceded by periodic situation analyses in which all possible changes are monitored...

Although a concern for gender equity provided the framework for this research, the results of this study highlighted the fact that the question of equity should be broadened to include concern for the tier of talented women and men who currently choose not to persist in an undergraduate computer science major. This investigation captured the experience of three male and two female first year undergraduate computer science majors (and two instructors) over the course of their first two college terms. Sources of data included interviews, classroom observations, electronic mail journal comments, and casual conversation. Subtle elements of potential gender discrimination were a part of the rich data collected but the students did not mention such factors. Rather, in faithfully portraying the students' perspectives, this research presented the students' candid discussion of the function of more obvious factors in their experiences. Difficulties with concepts of mathematical proof and computer programming were significant factors in the students' experiences. Students not experienced with mathematical proof or computer programming failed to develop an understanding of the basic principles in the respective course. Student difficulties were matched by the struggles of teaching faculty as they looked for input to support improvement in their teaching. Many of the factors identified by the students were found in the general undergraduate experience. All of the students knew little about careers in computer science and were anxious to learn more. The female students wanted their career to involve work they enjoyed. The male students wanted assurances that they could compete and find financial security in their career. The students valued support they found in a variety of forms and were disappointed in the lack of support found in advising sessions. Students struggled with inadequate study skills to meet demanding course expectations. This research identified factors in the culture of undergraduate computer science education that impacted students' decisions to persist, or not persist, in the field. The results indicate changes and provide a basis for the design of interventions aimed at creating an environment that will equitably support all persons in pursuit of an undergraduate computer science degree. / Graduation date: 1996

葉賜添. / 稿本(電腦打印本) / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學敎育學部. / Gao ben (dian nao da yin ben) / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-64). / Ye Cidian. / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue jiao yu xue bu. / 論文摘要 --- p.i / 誌謝 --- p.ii / 圖表目次 --- p.iii / Chapter 第一章 --- 引言 --- p.1 / 硏究動機 --- p.1 / 硏究目的 --- p.4 / 研究意義 --- p.4 / Chapter 第二章 --- 文献省覽及理論架構 / Chapter (一) --- 人力需求理論 --- p.5 / 人力需要假設 --- p.6 / 人力替代假設 --- p.10 / 雨種假設的論爭 --- p.12 / Chapter (二) --- 教育生產函數理論 --- p.15 / 教育產出變項 --- p.17 / 教育輸入變項 --- p.18 / 教師學歷與產出 --- p.19 / Chapter 第三章 --- 硏究方法 --- p.21 / Chapter (一) --- 硏究概念架構 --- p.22 / 硏究單位 --- p.30 / 硏究假設 --- p.31 / Chapter (二) --- 硏究設計 --- p.32 / 様本選取 --- p.32 / 硏究工具 --- p.33 / Chapter (三) --- 數據收集和分析 --- p.34 / Chapter (四) --- 硏究限制 --- p.35 / Chapter 第四章 --- 結果分析 / Chapter (一) --- 香港中學電腦教師人力狀況 --- p.37 / Chapter (二) --- 不同資歴教師之教學效果 --- p.41 / Chapter 第五章 --- 討論、建議及總結 --- p.52 / 註釋 --- p.59 / 參考文献 --- p.60 / 附錄：香港電腦教師人力資源調查問卷 --- p.65

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Submitted in partial fulfilment of an M.Com. degree in Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, March 2017 / Purpose – The aim of this research is to examine one case of the adoption and contextualisation of an international computing curriculum at a South African university in order to improve the understanding of this process for literature as well as practice. An international computing curriculum is a curriculum developed by international professional and scientific bodies such as the Association for Information Systems (AIS), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) or the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Design/methodology/approach – The research adopts an interpretivist approach and follows an exploratory research design using qualitative methods to gather data and directed content analysis for data analysis. The research site is a traditional South African university which has used the IS2010 curriculum as a guideline for their undergraduate Information Systems degrees. The site was chosen using convenience sampling. Data was obtained through interviews with staff at the Information Systems department as well as university documentation. Findings - The research indicates that university objectives, university context and industry skills needs have shaped the way the university has adopted and contextualised the IS2010 curriculum. The research also indicates that there are two types of challenges that were encountered: challenges caused by IS2010 and existing challenges that affected IS2010. The major challenges caused by IS2010 were the absence of important elements related to teaching and learning, particularly pedagogy. The challenges that affected the adoption of IS2010 but were not caused by IS2010 were challenges that the university was already facing. These include the language of instruction, institutional culture, staff shortages and students’ cultural and educational background. Originality and Practical contribution – Most of the research on this area focuses on African countries other than South Africa. Researchers have argued that it is important to conduct this kind of research on an individual country level because of the unique nature of the challenges facing each country. This research is an attempt to conduct such research specifically for South Africa. The research findings have shed light on how a South African university may adopt and contextualise an international computing curriculum and the challenges the university might face in doing so. This will in turn help computing educators in addressing such challenges and provide some guidance on how to go about doing so. The research also puts forward a conceptual framework that can be used to research computing curriculum contextualisation in South Africa. / GR2018

As new introductory block-based coding applications for young students to learn basic computer science concepts, such as, loops and conditionals, continue to increase in popularity, it is necessary to consider the best method of teaching students these skills. Many of these products continue to exhibit programmatic misconceptions of these concepts and many students struggle with how to apply what they learn to a text-based format due to the difficulties with learning the syntactic structure not present in block-based programming languages. If the goal of teaching young students how to program is meant to develop a set of skills they may apply when learning more complex programming languages, then discerning how they are introduced to those practices is imperative. However, few studies have examined how the specific modality in which students are taught to program effects how they learn and what skills they develop. More specifically, research has yet to effectively investigate modality in the context of an educational coding game where the modality feature is controlled, and content is consistent throughout game-play. This is mainly due to the lack of available games with this feature designed into the application. This dissertation explores whether programming modality effects how well students can learn and transfer computer science concepts and practices from an educational programming game. I proposed that by being guided from a blocks-based to text-based programming language would instill a deeper understanding of basic computer science concepts and would support learning and improve transfer and performance on new challenging tasks. Two experimental studies facilitated game-play sessions on the developed application for this project. The first study was a 2x2 between subjects design comparing educational module (game versus basic) and programming modality (guided versus free choice). The findings from Study 1 informed the final version design for the module used in the second study where only the game module was used in order to focus the comparison between programming modality. Findings showed that students who coded using the game module performed better on a learning test. Study 2 results showed that students who are transitioned from blocks-based to text-based programming language learn basic computer science concepts with greater success than those with the free choice modality. A comparative study was conducted using quantitative data from learning measures and qualitative video data from the interviews during the challenge task of the second study. This study examined how students at the extreme levels of performance utilized the toggle switch feature during game-play and how the absence of the feature impacted how they completed the challenge task. This analysis showed two different methods of toggle switch usage being implemented by a high and low performing student. The high performing student utilized the resources more often during the challenge tasks in lieu of leveraging the toggle switch and were still able to submit high level code. Results suggest that a free choice student who uses the feature as a tool to check their prewritten code rather than a as short cut for piecing code together as blocks and submitting the text upon the final attempt. This practice leads to a shallower understanding of the basic concepts and make it extremely difficult to expand and apply that knowledge to a more difficult task. This dissertation includes five chapters: an introduction and theoretical framework, a game design framework and implementation description, two experimental investigations, and a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Chapter one provides the conceptual and theoretical framework for the two experimental investigations. Chapter two describes the theory and design structure for the game developed for this dissertation work. Chapter three and four will discuss the effects of programming modality on learning outcomes. Specifically, chapter 3 focuses on implications of programming modality when determining how to implement changes for the design of the game for Study 2. Chapter five discusses a comparative analysis that investigated differing work flow patterns within the free choice condition between high and low performing students. Results from these three chapters illustrate the importance of examining this component of the computer science education process in supplemental games for middle and high school students. Additionally, this work contributes in furthering the investigation of these educational games and discusses implications for design of similar applications.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

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