What do beginning students know, and what can they do?

ABSTRACT

We are studying what students know about computer science-related topics before they take formal coursework at the university level. Preliminary results suggest that entering students have a fairly sophisticated understanding of algorithms. We are exploring other central computing topics for similar shared commonsense understanding.

REFERENCES

• 1: Gerald E. Evans , Mark G. Simkin, What best predicts computer proficiency?, Communications of the ACM, v.32 n.11, p.1322-1327, Nov. 1989 [doi>10.1145/68814.68817]
• 2: Mark E. Hoffman , David R. Vance, Computer literacy: what students know and from whom they learned it, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, v.37 n.1, 2005
• 3: Carsten Schulte , Johannes Magenheim, Novices' expectations and prior knowledge of software development: results of a study with high school students, Proceedings of the 2005 international workshop on Computing education research, p.143-153, October 01-02, 2005, Seattle, WA, USA [doi>10.1145/1089786.1089800]
• 4: A. Schwill. Fundamental ideas of computer science. Bull. EATCS, 53:274--295, 1994.
• 5: Phil Ventura , Bina Ramamurthy, Wanted: CS1 students. no experience required, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, v.36 n.1, March 2004

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

General Terms:
Theory

Keywords:
constructivism, education research, student background