A Demographic Analysis on Prerequisite Preparation in an Advanced Data Structures Course
A Demographic Analysis on Prerequisite Preparation in an Advanced Data Structures Course
复制标题
DOI：
10.1145/3478431.3499337
复制
发表时间：
2022-02
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Sophia Krause-Levy;Sander Valstar;Leo Porter;W. Griswold
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sophia Krause-Levy;Sander Valstar;Leo Porter;W. Griswold
以前在计算方面的工作表明，黑人，拉丁裔，美洲原住民和太平洋岛民（BLNPI），女性，第一代和转学生在大学期间的成绩往往比他们的大多数同行更差。以前的工作也发现，学生的入学先决条件课程的熟练程度与他们在一门课程的成果呈正相关。在这项工作中，我们调查的作用，先决条件的课程熟练程度对这些学生群体之间的结果。具体来说，我们检查传入的先决条件课程熟练程度在高级数据结构课程。当比较人口统计学对之间的入学先决课程熟练程度时，我们只看到性别或第一代身份的微小差异。不同的BLNPI状况存在相当大的差异，尽管这种差异在统计上并不显著，可能是由于BLNPI学生人数较少。此外，我们发现，转学生有相当大的和统计上显着较低的先决条件的课程熟练程度相比，非转学生。对于BLNPI和转学生，我们发现他们在先决课程中的成绩也较低，这可能部分解释了他们较低的先决课程熟练度。这些发现表明，机构需要找到更好地为BLNPI和转学学生服务的方法。
Previous work in computing has shown that Black, Latinx, Native American and Pacific islander (BLNPI), women, first-generation, and transfer students tend to have worse outcomes during their time in university compared to their majority counterparts. Previous work has also found that students' incoming prerequisite course proficiency is positively correlated with their outcomes in a course. In this work, we investigate the role that prerequisite course proficiency has on outcomes between these groups of students. Specifically, we examine incoming prerequisite course proficiency in an Advanced Data Structures course. When comparing incoming prerequisite course proficiency between demographic pairs, we only see small differences for gender or by first-generation status. There is a sizeable difference by BLNPI status, although this difference is not statistically significant, possibly due to the small number of BLNPI students. In addition, we find that transfer students have sizeable and statistically significantly lower prerequisite course proficiency when compared to non-transfer students. For BLNPI and transfer students, we find that they also have lower grades in the prerequisite courses, which may partially explain their lower prerequisite course proficiency. These findings suggest that institutions need to find ways to better serve BLNPI and transfer students.