Progression is a crucial concept in curriculum design, and it is often viewed in terms of prerequisites. This is an important aspect, but my preliminary research indicates a greater level of complexity and nuance to the topic, which I aim to explore in greater depth in my future work.

Fluency is a term commonly used to express proficiency within a specific area, often languages. However, it is sometimes also used in programming. In this poster, we present a phenomenographic study to investigate how CS students understand the term.

When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.

In this full research paper we examine questionable collaboration from a student perspective. Collaborating while solving computer lab assignments is often considered an important part when learning computer science, as it allows students to discuss their work, while also practicing working together. However, it also introduces risks, such as students collaborating in ways negatively impacting their learning outcomes and leading to inaccurate grading. Hence it is important to work towards reducing the use of these poor collaborative practices. In order to ameliorate the problem with academic misconduct, we need to understand students’ justifications for deviating from acceptable practices. In this paper we therefore investigate how students justify their collaborative practices during computer lab assignments in situations they experience as questionable. The justifications were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews with students experienced in pair programming, majoring in computer science and other technical fields from two large well-known European universities.The justifications from the interviews were analysed using phenomenography resulting in seven categories: external pressure, lack of interest, spending time on the assignment, understanding the end product, contributing to the process, learning from the assignment and reflecting on the purpose of the learning. These describe in which situations students might deviate from the rules and can be used by institutions to prevent such behavior.

Studying students' prerequisites from one course to another is important to understand which areas can be improved to ensure a smoother progression. This poster presents a pilot to a longitudinal study investigating students' progression from CS1 to CS2 using a mixed methods approach.

A CS degree is traditionally composed of many different courses which often build on each other. This means students need prerequisites from previous courses to succeed in follow-up courses. In this study, I will follow a group of students through their CS degree to better understand which prerequisites are necessary at different junctures of their education and how the students are affected when prerequisites are missing.