Computing scientists generally agree that abstract thinking is a crucial component for practicing computer science.</p> <p>We report on a three-year longitudinal study to confirm the hypothesis that general abstraction ability has a positive impact on performance in computing science.</p> <p>Abstraction ability is operationalized as stages of cognitive development for which validated tests exist. Performance in computing science is operationalized as grade in the final assessment of ten courses of a bachelor's degree programme in computing science. The validity of the operationalizations is discussed.</p> <p>We have investigated the positive impact overall, for two groupings of courses (a content-based grouping and a grouping based on SOLO levels of the courses' intended learning outcome), and for each individual course.</p> <p>Surprisingly, our study shows that there is hardly any correlation between stage of cognitive development (abstraction ability) and final grades in standard CS courses, neither for the various group-ings, nor for the individual courses. Possible explanations are discussed.
Description
Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?
%0 Conference Paper
%1 Bennedssen:2008:AAI:1404520.1404523
%A Bennedssen, Jens
%A Caspersen, Michael E.
%B Proceedings of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research
%C New York, NY, USA
%D 2008
%I ACM
%K ability abstraction indicator learning programmers_lament programming toread
%P 15--26
%R 10.1145/1404520.1404523
%T Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?
%U http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1404520.1404523
%X Computing scientists generally agree that abstract thinking is a crucial component for practicing computer science.</p> <p>We report on a three-year longitudinal study to confirm the hypothesis that general abstraction ability has a positive impact on performance in computing science.</p> <p>Abstraction ability is operationalized as stages of cognitive development for which validated tests exist. Performance in computing science is operationalized as grade in the final assessment of ten courses of a bachelor's degree programme in computing science. The validity of the operationalizations is discussed.</p> <p>We have investigated the positive impact overall, for two groupings of courses (a content-based grouping and a grouping based on SOLO levels of the courses' intended learning outcome), and for each individual course.</p> <p>Surprisingly, our study shows that there is hardly any correlation between stage of cognitive development (abstraction ability) and final grades in standard CS courses, neither for the various group-ings, nor for the individual courses. Possible explanations are discussed.
%@ 978-1-60558-216-0
@inproceedings{Bennedssen:2008:AAI:1404520.1404523,
abstract = {Computing scientists generally agree that abstract thinking is a crucial component for practicing computer science.</p> <p>We report on a three-year longitudinal study to confirm the hypothesis that general abstraction ability has a positive impact on performance in computing science.</p> <p>Abstraction ability is operationalized as stages of cognitive development for which validated tests exist. Performance in computing science is operationalized as grade in the final assessment of ten courses of a bachelor's degree programme in computing science. The validity of the operationalizations is discussed.</p> <p>We have investigated the positive impact overall, for two groupings of courses (a content-based grouping and a grouping based on SOLO levels of the courses' intended learning outcome), and for each individual course.</p> <p>Surprisingly, our study shows that there is hardly any correlation between stage of cognitive development (abstraction ability) and final grades in standard CS courses, neither for the various group-ings, nor for the individual courses. Possible explanations are discussed.},
acmid = {1404523},
added-at = {2012-02-09T22:47:33.000+0100},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
author = {Bennedssen, Jens and Caspersen, Michael E.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/203cdf152fb5df8a2196983b6bcb16ef9/schmidt2},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research},
description = {Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?},
doi = {10.1145/1404520.1404523},
interhash = {8b4b40b279e1f9c5d41d5e16d07b3826},
intrahash = {03cdf152fb5df8a2196983b6bcb16ef9},
isbn = {978-1-60558-216-0},
keywords = {ability abstraction indicator learning programmers_lament programming toread},
location = {Sydney, Australia},
numpages = {12},
pages = {15--26},
publisher = {ACM},
series = {ICER '08},
timestamp = {2012-05-04T13:37:00.000+0200},
title = {Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?},
url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1404520.1404523},
year = 2008
}