A Qualitative Exploration of Programming Instruction for Alternative Endpoints in Post-Secondary Computing Education
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| Udgivet i: | ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (2025) |
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| Resumen: | Undergraduate students are taking computer science (CS) courses, even if they are not planning to become computer science majors or professional programmers. However, recommendations for post-secondary computer science curriculum presume students are learning computer science for a career goal in software development. Prior work has revealed additional reasons why people learn programming: such as to become conversational programmers, computational scientists, computational artists, or end-user and vernacular programmers. These purposes are not well served by programming education built around CS's narrow goal of training software professionals. This can lead to students with non-technological career goals feeling unwelcome or uninterested in CS courses.In my dissertation, I explore how and why post-secondary students pursuing alternative computing endpoints learn programming. I answer three main questions:1. What are future primary and secondary school computing teachers taught about debugging their programs? 2. Why are post-secondary students motivated to enroll in alternative forms of computing education? 3. How do non-CS majors program and debug while completing creative, open-ended programming assignments?First, I interviewed educators of future primary and secondary school computing teachers to document how teachers are taught to debug their programs. I learned that facilitators taught methods which helped teachers quickly eliminate or avoid bugs. What facilitators of workshops for teachers prioritized was different than what is prioritized when teaching debugging to students in post-secondary CS courses, as the goals of teachers programming differ significantly from the goals of future software professionals.Second, I interviewed undergraduate students in elective general education programming courses to explore why and how students outside of the CS major choose to learn programming. I found that students were motivated to learn programming as they believed programming skill would aid them in their future careers, and because they wanted to learn the skills necessary to create programming artifacts such as video games. I found that, despite having strong motivations to learn about computing and programming, these same students chose the elective computing course because they felt the course was more approachable for novices and provided instruction in computing topics they cared about. My participants wanted to learn programming, but they did not want to learn programming in a course designed for future software professionals.Finally, I examine case studies of undergraduate non-CS majors completing creative, open-ended programming projects to explain how non-CS students assess and debug their programs. I found that participants assessed their program completion based on the assignment grading criteria, as well as how well the program fulfilled their individual aesthetic and artistic goals. Participants did not follow a debugging process, and dealt with errors through ‘trial and error,’ referencing course examples, and re-designing the goal of their programs. Participants did not use a systematic debugging process because they had not learned one. Instead, due to the open-ended nature of their programs, participants saw the re-design of their programs' final output as a valid strategy for removing errors.From my dissertation research, we gain an improved understanding of why post-secondary non-CS students would choose to take an elective course in programming, and how learners pursuing alternative endpoints approach programming and debugging. Based on my findings, I provide considerations for the design of future programming instruction for post-secondary students seeking alternative computing endpoints. |
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| ISBN: | 9798291567890 |
| Fuente: | ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global |