This position paper explores unequal participation in computing education within Sweden, offering a comprehensive analysis across multiple educational levels and institutional contexts. Drawing on national data and case studies, the paper examines participation trends in high school study programmes, higher education fields, and at Uppsala University, one of Sweden's leading institutions. The discussion addresses ambiguities in the definitions of ''computing,'' ''ICT,'' and ''digital competency'' and how this impacts the development of computing education in Sweden and beyond. We identify key factors shaping participation, including gender disparities, family background, and programme-specific barriers, and situate these findings within the broader evolution of the field. While this work is in its early stages, it aims to provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers to address inequalities and foster inclusive computing education in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

This full research paper explores how novice computer science and information technology students at two Swedish universities describe the subjects of computer science and programming. Computer science is a young, dynamic and multifaceted discipline and is currently undergoing a paradigm shift, mainly due to the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence and its connection to society and individuals. Computer science is becoming integrated into elementary school curricula and these aspects combined make it important to investigate how students perceive the subject. Reflective texts from 133 computer science and information technology students have been analysed using inductive content analysis and statistically significant differences among students have been investigated using Chi-Square analysis. The results show varying perceptions of the field, from quite basic and narrow views to more nuanced understandings that encompass its multidisciplinary nature and societal implications. Interestingly, female students were more inclined to consider the societal implications of computer science, suggesting potential avenues for enhancing educational strategies and fostering gender diversity within the field. The results in this study highlight the importance of continuous investigation into students' perceptions to guide educational approaches, promote inclusivity, and cultivate diverse perspectives within the ever-evolving discipline of computer science.

This is a full research paper. Computer science is a young, dynamic and rapidly evolving discipline. Content knowledge has been the focus for higher education in the subject but none-technical skills have gained increasing attention. To develop competence in the discipline, dispositions are also needed, this aspect is however new to computer science education. This study explores novice computer science students' perceptions of essential competencies for success in the field. Reflective texts from 133 students at two Swedish universities collected during their first week have been qualitatively analysed using the Competency learning framework (CoLeaF) and tested for statistically significant differences within the student group using a Chi-Square analysis. CoLeaF describes a competence in terms of its dispositional, skill and knowledge elements. Students were primarily focusing on disposition and skill elements. Motivation, perseverance and creativity were the most common dispositions and skills related to problem solving and logic were most prominent, followed by collaboration and communication. Math was the predominant knowledge element reflected on, partic-ularly by students with more prior programming experience. Differences emerged between legal genders, with females emphasizing curiosity, being structured, having a goal, and being challenged more than males. The study highlights a need for CS education to cultivate both technical expertise and non-technical qualities alongside a deeper understanding of ethical and societal responsibilities within the field.

Computing education in Western countries has traditionally been characterised by low levels of participation and diversity among its student population. In order to broaden participation in the field, it is fundamental to understand why students engage with the subject, and what they aspire to get out of their education. One approach is to use the Bourdieusian concept of capital, referring to the legitimate, valuable and exchangeable resources that individuals use to generate social advantage within specific fields. This paper presents a survey developed to measure forms of capital which enable students to participate in computing-related fields, and succeed in it. The sample included 432 students from 6 large-scale universities in Sweden. Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis, the hypothesised survey structure was assessed in terms of model fit to the observed data, and adjusted to achieve a survey with high internal consistency among the items and factors (robust: (X2p) = 0.119; CFI/TLI = 0.97/0.95; RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.041). Using the proposed model, group differences were observed using the Mann-WhitneyU test. Using a significance threshold of 0.05, differences between computing ((n = 241)) and non-computing ((n = 191)) students were observed for 11 out of 14 survey items, whereas for male ((n = 189)) and female ((n = 46)) computing students, differences were observed for 6 items. These results suggest that there is a relationship between the proposed forms of capital and participation in computing education, and that this relationship is stronger for male computing students.

Despite the rapid evolution of bioinformatics over the past decades, a lack of computing skills and a widening skill gap among biologists can be observed. It is therefore of increasing importance to understand why biologists are motivated in studying bioinformatics and computing, and what the challenges are that they face. To this end, a computing capital mixed methodology has been developed, inspired by the concept of science capital. A total of 13 master’s level bioinformatics students with a biology background participated in the computing capital survey, of which 10 agreed to a follow-up interview. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis suggest that, while biology students are driven by career opportunities, as well as positive beliefs and values when it comes to computing, they perceive barriers such as low levels of computing confidence, and a gap between their skills and future careers. Future research can build onto the developed methodology, and explore other aspects of capital and their role in computing education. The aim of such efforts is to broaden participation in computing education by developing an understanding of why people engage with computing, and what they aspire to do with it.

This Research Full Paper introduces a model for structuring playful, challenge-based learning activities drawing on a process of decontextualisation of a challenge to access its Computational Thinking intellectual and conceptual components and subsequent computationalisation of these components into computational artifacts that are recontextualised to render them attractive and accessible to school pupils. The case study follows a thick description approach to evaluating the engagement potential of the instructional design, as well as the didactic choices made during implementation. We conclude that Bebras cards and Dash robots provide considerable support for a playful engagement with computational concepts and engaging children with different scientific backgrounds in Computational Thinking. In particular, flexibility in how they are used and easy adaptation of challenge level make them useful in contexts with broad participation. Additionally we find that using robots to provide a link between the theoretical presentation of CT in the Bebras card and a physical representation and programming challenge is engaging and helps participants to focus on algorithmic concepts.

This work-in-progress paper presents a study on how K-12 Computer Science teachers in Saudi Arabia have changed their pedagogy as a result of engaging in one year of professional development leading up to applying for a teacher's award. The results are based on thematic analysis of fourteen interviews with teachers that have been awarded either the `Education Excellence Award' or the `Microsoft Expert in Education'. The study focuses on how preparing for and getting the teaching award has influenced them focusing on changes in their pedagogical development and subsequent practices. The work provides an in-depth description of several aspects of the Saudi Arabian teaching culture. It explores and discusses the affordances of mechanisms used to strengthen pedagogical competence in a teacher community, paying extra attention to awards. This study identifies four main factors that motivate teachers to engage in pedagogical development in teaching Computer Science. The research suggests that awards can be an efficient motivator in establishing a culture of excellence among Computer Science teachers.

This work-in-progress paper in the research category investigates students' experiences of learning over two project-based courses, of which the first is taken during bachelor studies and the second is taken during master studies. The research goal was to explore if and how the first project experience was considered beneficial to the latter. A pilot interview was conducted and analyzed for qualitatively different themes. Transformative learning theory (TLT) is introduced as the theoretical framework because of its focus on persistent learning originating in transformations in meaning perspectives. The results are discussed in the context of TLT, and they inform curriculum design and research on project-based learning.

Quality assurance processes in education have been a key area of engineering education development for several decades. ABET, ENQA - The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, as well as other agencies in Europe and the Asia Pacific have largely converged on a set of high level graduate outcomes, widely considered to be those most relevant to the engineering professions. We suggest that outcome assessment can be classified into four major approaches, education as a service (with the focus on identifying customers), as a process (with a focus on describing the formative impact of curriculum on learners), as a Body of Knowledge (with a focus on transmission of that knowledge and the generation of artefacts), and finally as expansion of the individual (focusing on holistic development of the intellect).

This paper explores the attitudes of Computer Science (CS) teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) who are confronted by the Saudi Teaching Competencies Standards (STCS). The STCS is a response to a substantial need to develop both subject-specific pedagogical ability as well as teachers subject area knowledge. The Ministry of Education in the KSA is encouraging teachers to improve their practices to achieve the new quality requirements for education. This paper presents the results of an investigation of CS teachers' views on educational belief changes in the KSA schools. The paper addresses how and why CS teachers adopt new educational beliefs in their teaching. The paper presents the results of the investigation of the CS teachers views on educational belief changes in the KSA schools and the STCS policy document guidelines. Research in the area of changing educational epistemology in teaching CS identifies six factors that influence teachers, these are personal pedagogical beliefs, peer learning, curriculum, self-directed learning, student feedback and the STCS. A mixed method study approach was adopted in this work. Content analysis has been applied to the interview transcript and thematic coding analysis to the government policy document (STCS). The results provide a valuable case study in the KSA and emphasize the weak relationship between educational epistemology change and the STCS norms. The findings show that the STCS should provide stronger guidance for CS teachers to keep changing beliefs in teaching CS. The STCS should offer supporting official resources to CS teachers to help them in changing their beliefs in regard to teaching CS.

Education can be seen as a preparation for a future profession, where some educational programs very clearly prepare their students for a certain profession, e.g. plumber, nurse and architect. The possible professions for students following education programs in computing is quite varied and thus difficult to cater for, but to educate towards a professional life is still a stated goal in most higher education settings. We argue that this goal is typically not even closely reached and provide an analysis indicating factors explaining this situation. The analysis is based on the concept of professional identity.In earlier work [1] a framework with which to reason about student interactions with the regulatory structure of higher education and teachers was developed. In that paper we developed a compound model which not only relates these players to one another, but also provides approaches to reasoning about misalignments which arise when students and teachers approach their shared learning context from different perspectives. This framework is in this paper applied to address different aspects of professional identity with the intent of bringing forth deeper insights into challenges with educating towards professions. This issue is highly complex and the framework provides a structure that is beneficial for analysing different aspects in a more holistic manner.

Repeatedly documented positive student responses to project-based learning during its decades-long tradition in CS attest to the effectiveness of learning by doing. Support for reflective learning nevertheless continues to be a topic worth studying because the intensity of project work together with a high technical orientation among CS students often complicate reflective practice. A critical incident-inspired assignment was added to a project-based course to support reflective practice in spring 2017. In a previous study, the authors analyzed how students approached the assignment and whether they found it supportive for learning. The present study content-analyses the situations that triggered experiences of learning, as indicated by student-written incident reports during the projects. The results show that students' experience of needing to do something for the project, hands-on experience, problems they encounter during the work, interaction, and receiving new information are all triggers for learning during the project. Students' internal processing and external demands were also identified as triggers, but do not seem to be effective as often as the other triggers in this data. The results provide a detailed view on the students' learning ``triggers,'' and hence complement the general, favorable assumption of learning by doing.

One of the challenges in being a teacher is to set up an educational setting where the students receive relevant learning opportunities for the specific course, the students' education in general, and for their future. However, efforts to create such educational settings do not always work in the way that faculty has intended. In this paper we investigate one such effort seen from a critical incident perspective. Central to the analysis in this paper is how the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) can provide explanations for the incident. The critical incident can be summarised as students refusing to take part in a non-compulsory, but from the faculty perspective highly educational, activity. We describe the incident in depth, give the background for the educational intervention, and analyse the incident from the perspective of TPB. This paper makes two major contributions to engineering education research. The first is the development of a method for analysing critical teaching and learning incidents using the TPB. The critical incident analysis illustrates how the method is used to analyse and reason about the students' behaviour. Another contribution is the development of a range of insights which deal with challenges raised by learning interventions, especially those involved with acquiring hidden or “invisible skills” not usually seen or acknowledged by students to belong to core subject area of a degree program.

A key component of the tertiary education system is the negotiation of common expectations in terms of pedagogy and the manner in which learning is scaffolded in the learning context. This paper addresses this interplay of perspectives by drawing on two elements of our previous work, a longitudinal study of student identity development [1] and a study contrasting project course students' experiences with teachers' expectations [2]. The paper develops a model of student interaction with teachers and the higher education system, which contributes to a better understanding of the consequences of recent changes and trends in higher education, e.g. demands for activating students, increased level of detail in course specifications, and examination of “non-core subject content”. This is an immensely complex area and we approach this challenge with a focus on the issue of students rejecting learning opportunities. Through this lens we will identify and illustrate some essential aspects of how to adapt educational settings to better accommodate how students behave and view the goal of their education.

One of the most important areas of competence for professional engineers is the ability to function well in project work, in particular they need to be able to efficiently solve open-ended problems in different collaborative settings. The development of this ability is however not prominent in engineering education despite numerous authors suggesting open-ended problems as a pedagogical tool to promote development of collaborative problem solving competence by including elements of group or project work in courses. In our own long experience of using open-ended problems in collaborative student projects, we have identified a lack of systematic progression in learning outcomes and skill development. We see this as a major obstacle for fully exploiting the potentials of using open-ended problems as an educational tool. We present a framework that provides a structured view of challenges related to openness that students can encounter in educational projects and that has an impact on the overall complexity of the project. We argue that there are different categories of openness to consider when designing educational settings based on open-ended projects. The categories addressed in this paper are: Character of the problems addressed. Character of the teams. Time constraints. Faculty involvement. External factors. Aspects of openness in the different categories are presented and related to professional engineering competencies. Furthermore, it is discussed how variations in project complexity can be accomplished by variations within the aspects and combinations of aspects. In particular, the framework addresses development and progression of professional competencies.

This paper studies the first computing education summer camp of its kind in Sweden. Semi-structured interviews were performed with six of the camp's instructors focusing on their teaching experiences in relation to the instructional content and the children. The instructors struggled with meeting the wide range in children's programming experience, suggesting a lack of pedagogical knowledge. The results also shed some light on the challenges and advantages related to recruitment, content, and teaching strategy. Awareness of the camp instructors' experiences enables computing instructors, in both formal and informal settings, to enhance the design of learning environments for children.

The attempt to embed Authenticity within the learning process in higher education has been a driving principle within many pedagogical approaches to Higher Education developed over the past three decades. The desire to allow students to learn in a manner that closely resembles the way in which expertise is developed outside the academic environment is a central element of problem-based, inquiry-based and project-based learning. Exploring the implications of authenticity for student achievement and the ways in which this should be assessed has led to innovative teaching methods and ways of evaluating student performance. Unfortunately, authenticity, and authentic assessment in particular, are concepts which are open to a range of interpretations, not least in an educational context where they may be used by both teachers and students with a variety of meanings. This paper investigates the working definitions of authentic assessment used by teaching staff within a Computing department in one U.K. university. We begin by giving an overview of some relevant aspects of authentic learning, which, historically, draws on pedagogies such as situated learning and social learning theory. We then focus on authenticity in the assessment process and describe a number of models which have been used to identify elements that contribute to this range of meaning. We analyse the descriptions of authentic assessment given by academic staff in terms of these concepts and suggest a framework which can be used to integrate the responses and characterise staff understanding of the authenticity. We then briefly compare these findings with other work investigating student responses to the same question and draw conclusions concerning the relevance of these factors on curriculum development, the use of assessment to drive learning and the role of staff development in promoting positive change in these areas. Finally, we make suggestions for further work.

A problem when it comes to evaluating the quality of education in professional competencies, such as writing skills, is being able to detect and measure progression. We have previously defined course level based learning outcomes for academic writing competency in computer science; these are used in a writing across the curriculum (WAC), in the discipline (WID) program. However, in order to assess whether the program is effective, i.e., that the participating students' writing skills progress throughout the education, we need a different set of criteria. Such criteria must capture the quality of the text from an academic perspective. They must also be easy to evaluate, and it must be possible to compare evaluations of different texts. There are many, sometimes conflicting, definitions of what `good academic writing' or `quality' in academic communication is. In this paper, we have defined it in terms of how the material is structured, how well arguments are presented, and how critical thinking is used to strengthen arguments. Following this definition, it is clear that argumentative skills can be used as an indicator of quality in academic communication. Our criteria for measuring writing competency are thus heavily based on assessing students' use of argumentative skills in written texts and are similar to criteria previously used to assess the quality of student participation in classroom discussions. This paper presents a framework for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of texts written by computer science students. We have related the criteria in our framework to general definitions of academic writing, and to our previously defined goals for writing competencies. The framework provides a grading scheme that can be used to assign a score to a text, corresponding to the level of academic quality exhibited in that text. The results of our framework thus enables comparisons between different student texts. We have used the framework to evaluate writing progression for a group of IT engineering students over three years.

Student-centric education has emerged as a dominant aspect of Higher Education policy over the last two decades. Much has been written about the benefits of student active educational approaches, and applied educational research, for instance the meta-study of Hattie, places emphasis on student-centric learning practices that enhance achieved learning outcomes. Most existing studies have been evaluations of single courses. In contrast this study focusses on the complete study context of the learner, who typically is in the situation of reading two or three courses simultaneously. Our primary goal in this paper is to explore potential challenges as we attempt to scale up active learning to encompass the full curricula. We use a mixture of interview and survey data collected from staff, combined with course schedules and student input to explore some of the potential implications of mandating a student-centric approach over an entire curriculum.

The rapid development in the IT area brings a series of shifts, in underlying theories, technology and work practices. In the normal course of events, most changes are evolutionary, with small, incremental improvements being made to theoretical understanding or practical application. Occasionally, however, changes occur of such magnitude that they do not just alter current operational practice but require a thorough reappraisal of the underlying assumptions on which that practice is based. In short, they require a review of the dominant way of thinking, or paradigm. Ability to adapt to evolving circumstances is critical, not only for industrial and commercial organisations, but also for individual employees, to survive and remain successful during paradigm shifts. How can we prepare our students so they can survive in a working life characterized by frequent paradigm shifts? It is important that CS and IT education prepares students for coping with shifts induced by technological development in their future careers, that students develop the competencies needed. To understand what competencies are needed, it is important to investigate characteristics among employees that have flourished in earlier paradigm shifts and not least to build knowledge on how to develop learning environments where such competencies and personal characteristics can be achieved This paper is about setting the stage for an action research project aimed at enhancing education with regard to being able to survive paradigm shifts in the IT industry.

The role of anonymous assessment in ensuring fair and equitable outcomes for students has been one of the major tenets of educational reform over the last few decades [1]. One of the major goals of these efforts is to reduce the impact of subconscious discriminatory behaviour in assigning grades based on perceptions of ability of gender or minority groups by the examiner. Recently however research has been emerging which challenges the widespread assumptions about the benefits of anonymity drawn from Newstead's work. Contrary results include the work of Dorsey and Colliver, 1995, in medical education, and Batten et al. 2013, who explore the impact of student reputation on assessment. These and many other studies conclude that anonymous assessment resulted in no apparent changes in assessment outcomes. In this paper we explore the implications of anonymity taking examples from educational settings where student anonymity is already an adopted practice. We discuss the positive and negative implications of student anonymity, and identify areas for future research.

An engineering graduate needs to master a number of important skills: problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, etc. In this paper we describe how a course in computer security, taught in the Computer and Information Engineering programme at Uppsala University, has been developed over a period of three years. The aim is to better develop the engineering competencies of students, improving their understanding of course contents, training their ability to reflect on it, and to apply their knowledge when facing realistic problems. The course is designed to activate students, based on practical labs and theoretical tasks which are solved in groups. The student reports are assessed at seminars, where the solutions are presented orally, peer-reviewed and discussed. The seminars encourage and reward activities at the higher levels of taxonomies such as Bloom's. The results of the development, based on a CEQ-based course evaluation, indicate that students take a deeper approach to learning. They develop their problem-solving skills to a high degree, appreciate the practical solving of open-ended problems, and take responsibility for collaborative learning. Their overall satisfaction with the course is quite high, despite indications that they find the workload high.

During the past two years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have created wide interest in the academic world raising both enthusiasm for new opportunities for universities and many concerns for the future of university education. The discussion has mainly appeared in non-scientific forums, such as magazine articles, columns and blogs, making it difficult to judge wider opinions within academia. To collect more rigorous data we surveyed teachers, researchers, and academic managers on their opinions and experiences of MOOCs. In this paper, we present our analysis of responses from the computer science academic community (n=137). Their feelings about MOOCs are highly mixed. Content analysis of open-ended questions revealed that the most often mentioned positive aspects included affordances of MOOCs, freedom of time and location for studying, and the possibility to experience teaching from top-level international teachers/experts. The most common negative aspects included concerns about pedagogical designs of MOOCs, assessment practices, and lack of interaction with the teacher. About half the respondents claimed they had not changed their teaching as a result of MOOCs, a small number used MOOCs as learning resources and very few were engaging with MOOCs in any significant way.

Oral and written communication proficiency is an important professional skill for engineering graduates. However, developing these skills is often poorly integrated into the engineering curriculum. We present a three year integrated approach to developing professional competence in oral and written communication, which has been implemented in the IT engineering program at a Swedish research university. In the paper we describe the educational approach, the nature of assessment items and measures taken to ensure progressive skills development in order to ensure that graduates emerge with fully fledged communications skills. The goal of the paper is to describe a successful model for professional skills development, and to encourage a continuing dialogue on how to best equip students with communication skills for professional practice.

Many existing algorithms for model checking of infinite-state systems operate on constraints which are used to represent (potentially infinite) sets of states. A general powerful technique which can be employed for proving termination of these algorithms is that of well quasi-orderings. Several methodologies have been proposed for derivation of new well quasi-ordered constraint systems. However, many of these constraint systems suffer from a "constraint explosion problem", as the number of the generated constraints grows exponentially with the size of the problem. We demonstrate that a refinement of the theory of well quasi-orderings, called the theory of better quasi-orderings is more appropriate for symbolic model checking, since it allows inventing constraint systems which are both well quasi-ordered and compact. We apply our methodology to derive new constraint systems for verification of systems with unboundedly many clocks, broadcast protocols, lossy channel systems, and integral relational automata. The new constraint systems are exponentially more succinct than existing ones, and their well quasi-ordering cannot be shown by previous methods in the literature.