research-article

Instructor Performance on Progressively Complex Programming Tasks: A Multi-Institutional Study from India

Authors:

Amey KarkareAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '21: Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1

Pages 561 - 567

https://doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456384

Published: 26 June 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Most of the 2.5 million undergraduates in CS and related programs in India are enrolled in institutions outside the top tier. While official policies broadly acknowledge that many instructors at these institutions lack the requisite domain competence, there is no precise understanding of their limitations. In this study, we analyse the ability of CS instructors from 10 mid-tier institutions in Karnataka (India) to perform CS1-level programming tasks. While instructors can perform simple code tracing tasks with reasonable accuracy, we find a sharp fall in their ability to reason about code abstractly, to modify given code, and to write code. Our findings have immediate implications for faculty training initiatives, which must initially focus on these foundational skills.

References

[1]

Brett A. Becker, Amber Settle, Andrew Luxton-Reilly, Briana B. Morrison, and Cary Laxer. 2021. Expanding Opportunities: Assessing and Addressing Geographic Diversity at the SIGCSE Technical Symposium. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 281--287. https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432448

[2]

Jens Bennedsen and Michael E. Caspersen. 2007. Failure Rates in Introductory Programming. SIGCSE Bull. 39, 2 (June 2007), 32--36. https://doi.org/10.1145/1272848.1272879

Digital Library

[3]

Jens Bennedsen and Michael E. Caspersen. 2019. Failure Rates in Introductory Programming: 12 Years Later. ACM Inroads 10, 2 (April 2019), 30--36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3324888

Digital Library

[4]

M. Black and H. Patel. 2010. Undergraduate Computer Engineering Education In Western India. Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. https://peer.asee.org/16431.

[5]

Rajdeep Das, Umair Z. Ahmed, Amey Karkare, and Sumit Gulwani. 2016. Prutor: A system for tutoring CS1 and collecting student programs for analysis.

[6]

Philip J. Guo. 2013. Online Python Tutor: Embeddable Web-Based Program Visualization for Cs Education. In Proceeding of the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Denver, Colorado, USA) (SIGCSE '13). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 579--584. https://doi.org/10.1145/2445196.2445368

Digital Library

[7]

Keith Harrow. 1982. A Faculty Development Program. SIGCSE Bull. 14, 1 (Feb. 1982), 170--173. https://doi.org/10.1145/953051.801362

[8]

AICTE India. 2018. AICTE Model Curriculum for UG Degree Courses in Engineering & Technology - Vol.I. https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default/files/Model_Curriculum/UG-1/ug-vol1.pdf.

[9]

H. P. Khincha, M. M. Malhotra, R. P. Dahiya, R. R. Gaur, and V. H. Radha Krishna. 2020. A Comprehensive Training Policy for Technical Teachers. All India Council for Technical Education. http://nittt.ac.in/pdf/policy_document.pdf.

[10]

Viraj Kumar. 2021. Faculty Performance on Simple Programming Tasks. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1340. https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3439676

[11]

Viraj Kumar, Priya Nayak, and Rhythm Girdhar. 2018. Plagiarism in Low-Stakes Unproctored Internet Testing for Programming Aptitude. In 2018 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E). IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 134--137. https://doi.org/10.1109/T4E.2018.00036

[12]

Raymond Lister, Elizabeth S. Adams, Sue Fitzgerald, William Fone, John Hamer, Morten Lindholm, Robert McCartney, Jan Erik Moström, Kate Sanders, Otto Seppälä, Beth Simon, and Lynda Thomas. 2004. A Multi-National Study of Reading and Tracing Skills in Novice Programmers. SIGCSE Bull. 36, 4 (June 2004), 119--150. https://doi.org/10.1145/1041624.1041673

Digital Library

[13]

Raymond Lister, Beth Simon, Errol Thompson, Jacqueline L. Whalley, and Christine Prasad. 2006. Not Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Novice Programmers and the SOLO Taxonomy. In Proceedings of the 11th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Bologna, Italy) (ITICSE '06). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 118--122. https://doi.org/10.1145/1140124.1140157

Digital Library

[14]

Andrew Luxton-Reilly. 2016. Learning to Program is Easy. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 284--289. https://doi.org/10.1145/2899415.2899432

[15]

Francesco Maiorana, Miles Berry, Mark Nelson, Chery Lucarelli, Margot Phillipps, Shitanshu Mishra, and Andrea Benassi. 2017. International Perspectives on CS Teacher Formation and Professional Development. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Bologna, Italy) (ITiCSE '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 236--237. https://doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3059067

Digital Library

[16]

Michael McCracken, Vicki Almstrum, Danny Diaz, Mark Guzdial, Dianne Hagan, Yifat Ben-David Kolikant, Cary Laxer, Lynda Thomas, Ian Utting, and Tadeusz Wilusz. 2001. A Multi-National, Multi-Institutional Study of Assessment of Programming Skills of First-Year CS Students. In Working Group Reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Canterbury, UK) (ITiCSE-WGR '01). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 125--180. https://doi.org/10.1145/572133.572137

Digital Library

[17]

Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education), Government of India. 2019. All India Survey on Higher Education 2018--19.

[18]

William Mitchell. 1986. Retraining Computing Faculty: A Perspective. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) (SIGCSE '86). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 203--210. https://doi.org/10.1145/5600.5703

Digital Library

[19]

NASSCOM and McKinsey. 2009. Perspective 2020: Transform Business, Transform India.

[20]

NASSCOM and SHL. 2020. HowIT Services Industry Hires: Skills&Competencies that are Imperative. https://www.shl.com/en/india/research-reports/how-itservices-industry-hires.

[21]

Quora (online discussion forum). 2017. How are students in Indian colleges taught programming? https://www.quora.com/How-are-students-in-Indiancolleges-taught-programming.

[22]

Sue Sentance, Simon Humphreys, and Mark Dorling. 2014. The Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science and Master Teachers. In Proceedings of the 9th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (Berlin, Germany) (WiPSCE '14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 80--88. https://doi.org/10.1145/2670757.2670789

Digital Library

[23]

Sue Sentance and Jane Waite. 2017. PRIMM: Exploring Pedagogical Approaches for Teaching Text-Based Programming in School. In Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education (Nijmegen, Netherlands) (WiPSCE '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 113--114. https://doi.org/10.1145/3137065.3137084

Digital Library

[24]

Sue Sentance, Jane Waite, and Maria Kallia. 2019. Teachers' Experiences of Using PRIMM to Teach Programming in School. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Minneapolis, MN, USA) (SIGCSE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 476--482. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287477

Digital Library

[25]

Amber Settle, Brett A. Becker, Rodrigo Duran, Viraj Kumar, and Andrew Luxton-Reilly. 2020. Improving Global Participation in the SIGCSE Technical Symposium: Panel. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Portland, OR, USA) (SIGCSE '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 483--484. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366979

Digital Library

[26]

A. S. Shettar, R. K. Challa, S. Agarwal, and U. Pandel. 2018. Examination Reform Policy. All India Council for Technical Education. https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default/files/ExaminationReforms.pdf.

[27]

SHL. 2017. National Programming Skills Report. https://www.shl.com/wpcontent/uploads/en-national-programming-skills-report-engineers-2017.pdf.

[28]

SHL. 2019. National Employability Report for Engineers. https://www.shl.com/en/india/employability-reports/.

[29]

Kentaro Toyama. 2015. Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. Hachette, UK.

[30]

Rebecca Vivian, Keith Quille, Monica M. McGill, Katrina Falkner, Sue Sentance, Sarah Barksdale, Leonard Busuttil, Elizabeth Cole, Christine Liebe, and Francesco Maiorana. 2020. An International Pilot Study of K-12 Teachers' Computer Science Self-Esteem. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Trondheim, Norway) (ITiCSE '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 117--123. https://doi.org/10.1145/3341525.3387418

Digital Library

[31]

Christopher Watson and Frederick W.B. Li. 2014. Failure Rates in Introductory Programming Revisited. In Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Innovation & Technology in Computer Science Education (Uppsala, Sweden) (ITiCSE '14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 39--44. https://doi.org/10.1145/2591708.2591749

Digital Library

[32]

Jacqueline L. Whalley and Raymond Lister. 2009. The BRACElet 2009.1 (Wellington) Specification. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 95 (Wellington, New Zealand) (ACE '09). Australian Computer Society, Inc., AUS, 9--18.

Digital Library

Cited By

Grover SRaman ABanati H(2023)Does Bilingual Specification impact students' comprehension of problems in Introductory Programming?Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM India Compute Conference10.1145/3627217.3627237(66-71)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627217.3627237

Index Terms

Instructor Performance on Progressively Complex Programming Tasks: A Multi-Institutional Study from India
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing profession

Recommendations

Faculty Performance on Simple Programming Tasks
SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

We generally accept that some students will struggle on simple tasks at the end of an introductory programming course. We investigate the disturbing possibility that many CS faculty in India also struggle on such tasks. Based on initial data from a pan-...
Manipulating mindset to positively influence introductory programming performance
SIGCSE '10: Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

Introductory programming classes are renowned for their high dropout rates. The authors propose that this is because students learn to adopt a fixed mindset towards programming. This paper reports on a study carried out with an introductory programming ...
Engaging Programming Assignments to Recruit and Retain CS0 Students: (Abstract Only)
SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Many universities offer an optional CS0 course taken prior to traditional CS1 and CS2 courses. Students enrolling in CS0 represent a variety of programming experience levels and majors. To more successfully recruit students to CS0 and retain students as ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '21: Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1

June 2021

611 pages

ISBN:9781450382144

DOI:10.1145/3430665

General Chairs:
Carsten Schulte
Paderborn University, Germany
,
Brett A. Becker
University College Dublin, Ireland
,
Program Chairs:
Monica Divitini
NTNU, Norway
,
Erik Barendsen
Radboud University & Open University, The Netherlands

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 June 2021

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ITiCSE 2021

Sponsor:

SIGCSE

ITiCSE 2021: 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 26 - July 1, 2021

Virtual Event, Germany

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

1
Total Citations
View Citations
102
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)14
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 01 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Grover SRaman ABanati H(2023)Does Bilingual Specification impact students' comprehension of problems in Introductory Programming?Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM India Compute Conference10.1145/3627217.3627237(66-71)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627217.3627237

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents