Students' Perceptions of Behaviors Associated with Professional Dispositions in Computing Education

  • Dispositions, skills, and knowledge form the three components of competency-based education. Moreover, dispositions are considered crucial for students to succeed in the workplace. Few studies investigate how dispositions manifest in the form of observable behaviors, which causes challenges for both students and educators. Computing students, for example, may not understand what is expected of them, and how to achieve dispositions. This paper presents the results of a qualitative, multi-institutional study on students’ understanding of the dispositions adaptable, persistent, self-directed, meticulous, and professional. Perceptions were gathered by asking for exemplary situations of students applying each of the five dispositions in the context of assignments within computing courses. Students who indicated they did not apply the disposition were asked to describe the hindering circumstances. The data was evaluated by using Mayring’s content analysis technique, resulting in the development of deductive-inductive categories ofDispositions, skills, and knowledge form the three components of competency-based education. Moreover, dispositions are considered crucial for students to succeed in the workplace. Few studies investigate how dispositions manifest in the form of observable behaviors, which causes challenges for both students and educators. Computing students, for example, may not understand what is expected of them, and how to achieve dispositions. This paper presents the results of a qualitative, multi-institutional study on students’ understanding of the dispositions adaptable, persistent, self-directed, meticulous, and professional. Perceptions were gathered by asking for exemplary situations of students applying each of the five dispositions in the context of assignments within computing courses. Students who indicated they did not apply the disposition were asked to describe the hindering circumstances. The data was evaluated by using Mayring’s content analysis technique, resulting in the development of deductive-inductive categories of observable behaviors reflecting the student’s perspective. For meticulous and professional, new categories representing observable behaviors were developed. For adaptable, persistent, and self-directed, the authors confirmed and extended prior work. Moreover, factors hindering students in applying the investigated dispositions are identified. The resulting categories with observable student behaviors are an important step toward the operationalization of competency-based learning outcomes including dispositions. A common understanding of dispositions will also help with the design of new forms of instruction and measures to foster the application of dispositions in the context of computing education.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Natalie KieslerORCiD, Amruth N. KumarORCiD, Bonnie K. MacKellarORCiD, Renée McCauleyORCiD, Mihaela SabinORCiD, John ImpagliazzoORCiD
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3649217.3653566
Parent Title (English):Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1
Publisher:ACM
Place of publication:New York, NY, USA
Document Type:conference proceeding (article)
Language:English
Reviewed:Begutachtet/Reviewed
Release Date:2024/12/18
Tag:Dispositions, meticulous, professional, competency-based educa- tion, observable learning outcomes, CC2020 Computing Curricula, qualitative analysis, student perspective
Pagenumber:7
First Page:353
Last Page:359
institutes:Fakultät Informatik
Licence (German):Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-SA - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0 International
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