Subprojcets

Research issues and scope

The research project "Learning, learning resources, and learning environments in computer science" is based on a view of learning which assumes that knowledge is actively constructed by the students rather than passively acquired from text books and lectures. The student utilizes a wide variety of resources in the learning process, not only text books and lectures, but also interaction with fellow students, WWW documents, various types of computer support, exercises, projects, etc. Taken together, these resources constitute the student's personal learning environment, whether they are formal or informal, predictable or opportunistic resources. In this context, the role of the teacher and the educating institution is to provide a selection of basic resources, that will enhance the creation of the personal learning environments.

From this perspective, it is of interest to investigate such resources, and their roles in the learning process. We intend to focus on the following issues:

1. What resources do students use in learning various aspects of computer science? Here, the goal is to identify what resources the students actually use. These need not coincide with, nor be limited to, the resources provided by the educating institution.
2. Given certain resources, how do students use them to learn?
3. How does the choice of resources relate to the outcome of the learning process? Primarily, we are interested in investigating if certain combinations of resources, and ways of resource utilization, can be used to promote deep learning to a higher degree than others.

The research project consists of two subprojects.

Subproject on introductory courses

This subproject focuses on introductory courses in object-oriented programming. General issues formulated above are studied. With regard to Issue 3, the following aspects of learning outcome are considered:

• How the students perceive abstract concepts in object-oriented programming.
• How the students master practical skills, such as applying programming techniques and using some programming language to implement solutions to given problems.
• How the students perceive object-oriented programming, in a wider sense, after having taken a first course on the subject. What is the importance of the subject? What are the real-life applications like? What is the relation between the contents of the introductory course and the issues occuring in the case of real-life applications?

With regard to the actual courses from which to collect data for this subproject, our aim is to select them from different study programmes, oriented towards distinctly different professional cultures. This allows for a comparative study, with a potential of increasing the generality of the conclusions of the project.

Subproject on international student collaboration

This subproject includes students at two different universities (Uppsala University and Grand Valley State University, MI, USA), and the focus is on students' learning in an internationally distributed project course in computer networks, distributed systems and real-time systems. The students work in groups of six students, three from each university and produce jointly an advanced software system to solve a given, practical problem.

The subproject considers Issue 1-3 above, with particular regard to such resources that come into play in learning in international collaboration via computer networks. This can be, e.g., e-mail systems, conference systems, or more advanced systems for computer-supported collaborative work. The question raised in this subproject is in what ways students, who take part in international collaboration as part of courses in computer science, experience their learning and collaboration. The question can be analysed into a number of aspects which relate to

• how the collaborative learning situation is experienced and tackled
• how different resources available are experienced as support for peer learning
• how the situation is seen as a contribution to future professional life

Further, these can be examined in the light of the outcomes of learning in the specific course context in the field of computer science.