Research Interests: Assessment and Curriculum
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This paper examines computing academics' conceptions of the Unix operating system, and the purpose of teaching Unix. Interview transcripts from nine academics were analysed phenomenographically. A small number of qualitatively... more
This paper examines computing academics' conceptions of the Unix operating system, and the purpose of teaching Unix. Interview transcripts from nine academics were analysed phenomenographically. A small number of qualitatively different conceptions of Unix were identified, within two broad categories. The first broad category manifested a technical approach to Unix. Within this broad category, the conceptions of Unix were, from the least to most sophisticated−(1) Unix as a set of unrelated commands;(2) Unix as a command line ...
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A multi -national, multi-institutional study investigating introductory programming courses drew on student participants from eleven institutions, mainly in Australasia, during the academic year of 2004. A number of diagnostic tasks were... more
A multi -national, multi-institutional study investigating introductory programming courses drew on student participants from eleven institutions, mainly in Australasia, during the academic year of 2004. A number of diagnostic tasks were used to explore cognitive, behavioural, and attitudinal factors such as spatial visualisation and reasoning, the ability to articulate strategies for commonplace search and design tasks, and attitudes to studying.
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In this paper we report on a multi-institutional investigation into the reading and comprehension skills of novice programmers. This work extends previous studies (Lister 2004, McCracken 2001) by developing a question set within two key... more
In this paper we report on a multi-institutional investigation into the reading and comprehension skills of novice programmers. This work extends previous studies (Lister 2004, McCracken 2001) by developing a question set within two key pedagogical frameworks: the Bloom and SOLO taxonomies. From this framework of analysis some interesting emergent patterns relating the cognitive level of the questions to student
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BRACElet is a multi-institutional multi-national research study of how novice programmers comprehend and write computer programs. This paper reviews the first action research cycle of the BRACElet project and, in the process, charts a... more
BRACElet is a multi-institutional multi-national research study of how novice programmers comprehend and write computer programs. This paper reviews the first action research cycle of the BRACElet project and, in the process, charts a path for the upcoming second cycle. The project remains close to educational practice, with much of the data being either data collected directly from exams sat
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This paper presents first results from a wide-ranging phenomenographic study of computing academics' understanding of teaching. These first results focus upon four areas: the role of lab practical sessions, the experience of teaching... more
This paper presents first results from a wide-ranging phenomenographic study of computing academics' understanding of teaching. These first results focus upon four areas: the role of lab practical sessions, the experience of teaching success, conceptions of motivating and engaging students, and the granularity of the teacher's focus. The findings are comparable with prior work on the understandings of academics in other disciplines. This study was started as part of a workshop on phenomenography. Most participants at ...