Broadening Participation in Introductory Computer Science: Investigating Self-Assessment Practices for Increasing Student Learning and Self-Efficacy in Two Institutional Contexts

扩大计算机科学入门的参与：研究两种制度背景下提高学生学习和自我效能的自我评估实践

• 批准号: 2215245
• 负责人: Alex Lishinski
• 金额: $ 29.98万
• 依托单位: University of Tennessee Knoxville
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215245&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Broadening; Participation; Introductory; Computer; Science

This project aims to serve the national interest by generating new knowledge of how to support students’ self-efficacy in computer science and provide practical pedagogical strategies that instructors can implement to address equity in computer science education. In computer science education, students must develop problem-solving skills that include the ability to apply core computing concepts alongside more general skills like problem decomposition and abstraction. However, an often-overlooked aspect of the learning process in computer science is the development and use of metacognitive skills, the practices of self-monitoring and reflection that learners must use to be successful. This project intends to study the effectiveness of an intervention designed to scaffold the development of computer science students’ meta-cognitive skills through directed practice with self-assessment. This approach has shown promise in prior education research but has not been adapted to the computing context. The significance of this project is that it has the potential to provide new robust evidence for improved pedagogical strategies that will benefit students in computer science concerning both their learning and motivational outcomes. This benefits both success in the introductory classes being studied as well as persistence in future courses. Furthermore, this has the potential to contribute to the mission of broadening participation in computing by supporting students from underrepresented groups in computing to have good experiences in introductory courses and beyond.This project aims to leverage prior research in educational psychology to develop an intervention to support students’ development of self-assessment skills. In addition, this project seeks to conduct an experimental evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention, looking at both students’ learning outcomes and motivational outcomes in introductory computer science classes. The development and testing of the intervention will take place with around 1,000 students at two different types of institutions, a large public university, and a large community college. This setting should allow the project to assess the impact of the intervention across a variety of introductory computer science courses and student populations to increase the generalizability of the findings. In the context of a field experiment design, the development of the intervention seeks to involve the collection of extensive feedback on the usability and suitability of the intervention from both instructors and students with a specific focus on students’ experiences from underrepresented groups in computing. By improving students’ self-assessment skills, this project has the potential to give computer science instructors a new set of practices that they can use to help their students’ learning and motivation outcomes and advance the goal of broadening participation in computing. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在通过生成如何支持学生在计算机科学方面的自我效能的新知识来服务于国家利益，并提供教师可以实施的实用教学策略来解决计算机科学教育的公平问题。在计算机科学教育中，学生必须培养解决问题的技能，包括应用核心计算概念的能力以及问题分解和抽象等更通用的技能。然而，计算机科学学习过程中经常被忽视的一个方面是元认知技能的发展和使用，以及学习者要想成功必须进行的自我监控和反思的实践。该项目旨在研究旨在通过自我评估的定向练习来促进计算机科学学生元认知技能发展的干预措施的有效性。这种方法在先前的教育研究中显示出了前景，但尚未适应计算环境。该项目的意义在于，它有可能为改进教学策略提供新的有力证据，这将使计算机科学专业的学生在学习和动机方面受益。这既有利于在所学习的入门课程中取得成功，也有利于在未来课程中坚持下去。此外，通过支持计算机领域代表性不足的群体的学生在入门课程及其他课程中获得良好的经验，这有可能有助于扩大计算机参与的使命。该项目旨在利用教育心理学的先前研究来制定干预措施，以支持学生自我评估技能的发展。此外，该项目旨在对干预措施的有效性进行实验评估，观察学生在计算机科学入门课程中的学习成果和动机成果。干预措施的开发和测试将由两所不同类型机构（一所大型公立大学和一所大型社区学院）的约 1,000 名学生进行。这种设置应该允许项目评估干预对各种计算机科学入门课程和学生群体的影响，以提高研究结果的普遍性。在现场实验设计的背景下，干预措施的制定旨在收集教师和学生对干预措施的可用性和适用性的广泛反馈，特别关注计算机领域代表性不足群体的学生体验。通过提高学生的自我评估技能，该项目有可能为计算机科学教师提供一套新的实践，他们可以用这些实践来帮助学生的学习和激励成果，并推进扩大计算机参与的目标。 NSF IUSE：EHR 计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生 STEM 教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。