On Teaching Abstraction in Computer Science: Secondary-School Teachers' Perceptions vs. Practices
Authors: 
Liat Nakar, Michal ArmoniAuthors Info & Claims
Liat Nakar, Michal ArmoniAuthors Info & ClaimsArticle No.: 8, Pages 1 - 7
Abstract
Abstraction is a central and fundamental idea of computer science (CS), which is widely used, for example, for simplifying problems and designing algorithms. Many argue that abstraction skills are the most necessary ones for computer scientists. In line with this, abstraction is acknowledged as an essential aspect of CS curricula. However, the literature indicates that CS teachers may lack knowledge about the importance of abstraction and how to teach it. In this qualitative study we closely examined the abstraction-related teaching approaches of eight high-school CS teachers, considering both their reflections on their teaching approach and their actual classroom practice. Our findings indicate that abstraction may not be sufficiently emphasized in class. We also found gaps between the perception of some teachers regarding their abstraction-related teaching approach and their actual way of teaching abstraction in their classrooms.
References
[1]
Dan Aharoni, 2000. Cogito, Ergo sum! cognitive processes of students dealing with data structures. In Proceedings of the 21st SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. (pp. 26-30).
[2]
Alfred V. Aho and Ullman D. Jeffrey, 1992. Foundations of Computer Science. Computer Science Press, Inc.
[3]
Michal Armoni, 2013. On teaching abstraction in CS to novices. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching 32(3), 265-284.
[4]
Michal Armoni and Judith Gal-Ezer, 2023. High-school computer science – its effect on the choice of higher education. Informatics in Education, 22(2), 183-206.
[5]
Michal Armoni, Judith Gal-Ezer and Orit Hazzan, 2006. Reductive thinking in computer science. Computer Science Education 16(4), 281-301.
[6]
Paolo Bucci, Timothy J. Long and Bruce W. Weide, 2001. Do we really teach abstraction? In Proceedings of the 32nd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 26-30).
[7]
Lillian Cassel, Alan Clements, Gordon Davies, Mark Guzdial, Renée McCauley, Andrew McGettrick, Bob Sloan, Larry Snyder, Paul Tymann and Bruce W. Weide, 2008. Computer Science Curriculum 2008: An Interim Revision of CS 2001. ACM.
[8]
Nell Dale and Henry M. Walker, 1996. Abstract Data Types: Specifications, Implementations, and Applications. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
[9]
Elena Delgado-Rico, Hugo Carretero-Dios and Willibald Ruch, 2012. Content validity evidences in test development: An applied perspective. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology 12(3), 449-460.
[10]
Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1972. The humble programmer. Communications of the ACM 15(10), 859-866.
[11]
Edsger W. Dijkstra, 1975. About robustness and the like. EWD 452. The Archive of Dijkstra's Manuscripts. Available in https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD452.html.
[12]
N. Elangovan and E. Sundaravel, 2021. Method of preparing a document for survey instrument validation by experts. MethodsX 8:101326.
[13]
Herbert Ginsburg, 1981. The clinical interview in psychological research on mathematical thinking: Aims, rationales, techniques. For the learning of mathematics 1(3), 4-11.
[14]
Bruria Haberman, 2004. High-school students' attitudes regarding procedural abstraction. Education and Information Technologies 9(2), 131-145.
[15]
Juris Hartmanis, 1994. Turing award lecture on computational complexity and the nature of computer science. Communications of the ACM 37(10), 37-43.
[16]
Orit Hazzan, 2008. Reflections on teaching abstraction and other soft ideas. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 40(2), 40-43.
[17]
Jeff Kramer, 2003. Abstraction – is it teachable? The devil is in the detail'. In Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training. IEEE Computer Society.
[18]
Jeff Kramer, 2007. Is abstraction the key to computing?. Communications of the ACM 50(4), 36-42.
[19]
Christine Liebe and Tracy Camp, 2019. An examination of abstraction in K-12 computer science education. In Proceedings of the 19th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (pp. 9:1-9).
[20]
Orna Muller, Bruria Haberman, and Haim Averbuch. 2004. (An almost) pedagogical pattern for pattern-based problem-solving instruction. In Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 102-106).
[21]
Liat Nakar and Michal Armoni, 2022. Pattern-oriented instruction and students' abstraction skills. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 2 (pp. 613-613).
[22]
Jacqueline Nijenhuis-Voogt, Durdane Bayram-Jacobs, Paulien C. Meijer and Erik Barendsen, 2021. Teaching algorithms in upper secondary education: a study of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. Computer Science Education 33(1), 61-93.
[23]
Rachel Or-Bach and Ilana Lavy, 2004. Cognitive activities of abstraction in object orientation: an empirical study. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 36(2), 82-86.
[24]
Jacob Perrenet, Jan Friso Groote and Eric Kaasenbrood, 2005. Exploring students' understanding of the concept of algorithm: levels of abstraction. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 64-68).
[25]
Andreas Schwill, 1994. Fundamental ideas of computer science. Bulletin-European Association for Theoretical Computer Science 53, 274-274.
[26]
Asher Shkedi, 2005. Multiple Case Narrative: A Qualitative Approach to Studying Multiple Populations. Vol. 7. John Benjamins Publishing.
[27]
David Statter and Michal Armoni, 2020. Teaching abstraction in computer science to 7th grade students. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 20(1), 8: 1-37.
[28]
Jeannette M. Wing, 2006. Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM 49(3), 33-35.
[29]
Jane Lisa Waite, Paul Curzon, William Marsh, Sue Sentance and Alex Hadwen-Bennett, 2018. Abstraction in action: K-5 teachers' uses of levels of abstraction, particularly the design level, in teaching programming. International Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools 2(1), 14-40.
Index Terms
- On Teaching Abstraction in Computer Science: Secondary-School Teachers' Perceptions vs. Practices
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
Recommendations
Attracting Secondary School Students to Computer Science through Training Teachers to Establish Computer Clubs: (Abstract Only)
SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationThe poster describes an innovative approach to help secondary school teachers enhance their computer science (CS) knowledge through the Google funded CS4HS (Computer Science for High School) program. Through a 4-day professional training workshop ...
Changing perceptions of computer science and computational thinking among high school teachers
Interest in specific college majors begins in high school. The influence of high school math and science teachers is important, both for high school preparation of future computer science undergraduates, and for the understanding and interest in ...
Building a Statewide Computer Science Teacher Pipeline
SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationFrom 2012 to 2015, the number of Utah secondary teachers teaching computer science courses grew from 38 to 164. This growth was made possible by introducing three new CS teacher endorsements, which reduced the effort required for existing teachers to ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
September 2023
107 pages
Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives International 4.0 License.
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 25 September 2023
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
- Research
- Refereed limited
Conference
UKICER 2023
UKICER 2023: The United Kingdom and Ireland Computing Education Research conference
September 7 - 8, 2023
Swansea, Wales Uk
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 381Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)297
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)31
Reflects downloads up to 13 Jan 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
View options
View or Download as a PDF file.
PDFeReader
View online with eReader.
eReaderHTML Format
View this article in HTML Format.
HTML FormatLogin options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in