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Low code quality incurs a significant cost upon the software industry. Despite this, little serious effort has been devoted to the topic at the most basic levels of computing science education. Where studies have been conducted, the results are disappointing in terms of code quality. In this work, four iterations of a medium to large CS1 and CS2 course (n=200 students) were analyzed through the lens of code violations to better understand (1) what code violations occur most frequently, (2) how does their occurrence vary throughout the course, and (3) to what extent do teaching assistants have an effect upon code quality. Results showed a statistically significant improvement in code quality over 19 assignments in all four course iterations. In particular, when a single violation was the focus of a learning outcome, the effects were both a dramatic fall and sustained low occurrence. However, this improvement was mostly focused on the three most frequently occurring violations (> 70%), which masked an increase in lesser occurring violations throughout the course. Finally, the effects from different teaching assistants were found to be random at best, contradicting expectations that their influence would be easily detected. Given that explicit learning outcomes targeted at code quality had an effect and teaching assistant influence had no effect, a path forward to improving code quality might combine these forces without creating too many additional demands upon the already stretched teaching resources with CS1 and CS2 courses., Part of ISBN 9781450394314QC 20230801

Assessments of students' performances, including providing the students with feedback, are central parts of course design in higher education. These assessments can be carried out in different ways and with different purposes. The introductory programming courses (CS1) are often given to a large group of students, many of whom are non-computer science majors. To conduct the assessments and provide the students with individual feedback, teaching assistants (TAs, students with prior experience of the subject) are often employed to assist the course coordinators (main instructors) in these courses. The practice-based research aim of this thesis is to give recommendations to course coordinators and TAs on how to integrate assessment situations in CS1 courses, aiming to be experienced as fair and valid examinations and opportunities to provide the students with useful feedback. To do so, the experiences and use of assessments within CS1 courses given to non-computer science majors, are explored from the perspective of students, TAs, and course coordinators. The three stakeholders' experiences are also compared, and to further understand the experiences, the TAs' and course coordinators' perceptions of their roles in relation to the assessments are explored. The studied assessment types include lab assignments, midterm exams, and individual final projects. By using a mixed-method approach with a qualitative starting point, each of the stakeholders' perspectives has been studied in detail, mostly within a Swedish context. The research uncovers the complex role of the TAs and the other stakeholders' strong dependency on them. The results suggest that each of the three studied assessment types has weaknesses and strengths that often are experienced differently by the stakeholders. This includes pitfalls with how assessment situations, designed by course coordinators to be both learning activities and graded, are challenging for the TAs to conduct. The assessments then risk, Bedömningar av studenters prestationer, inklusive att ge studenterna återkoppling, är centrala delar av kursutformningen inom högre utbildning. Bedömningar kan dock göras på olika sätt och med olika syften. Inledande programmeringskurser (CS1) ges ofta till en stor grupp studenter där många valt ett annat huvudämne än datavetenskap. För att kunna genomföra bedömningarna och ge studenterna individuell återkoppling, anlitas ofta lärarassistenter (studenter med tidigare erfarenhet av ämnet) som hjälper kursansvariga (huvudlärarna). Det praktiknära forskningssyftet med denna avhandling är att ge rekommendationer till kursansvariga och assistenter om hur bedömningssituationer kan integreras i CS1-kurser, med en strävan att upplevas som både rättvisa och relevanta examinationer samt utgöra möjligheter att ge studenterna användbar återkoppling. För att kunna göra det utforskas erfarenheter och användning av bedömning i CS1-kurser, som ges till studenter som inte har valt datavetenskap som sitt huvudämne, ur studenters, assistenters och kursansvarigas perspektiv. De tre intressenternas erfarenheter jämförs också med varandra och för att ytterligare förstå erfarenheterna undersöks även assistenters och kursansvarigas syn på sina roller i relation till bedömningarna. De studerade bedömningstyperna inkluderar labbuppgifter, mittkursprov och individuella slutprojekt. Genom att kombinera kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder, med en utgångspunkt i det kvalitativa, har var och en av dessa intressenters perspektiv studerats i detalj, främst i en svensk kontext. Forskningsresultaten belyser assistenternas komplexa roll och hur beroende de andra intressenterna är av dem. Resultaten tyder på att var och en av de tre studerade bedömningstyperna har svagheter och styrkor som ofta upplevs olika av intressenterna. Detta inkluderar fallgropar där bedömningssituationer, som är utformade av kursansvariga för att vara både lärandeaktiviteter och betygsätts, är utmanande för assistenterna att, QC 20220330

Teaching assistants (TAs) are often used in computer science (CS) courses to conduct tutorials in smaller groups and to be able to provide students with one-to-one help sessions. TAs can also assist with the assessment, which can be time-consuming in large classes. Previous research does, however, indicate that TAs can be poorly prepared for their work tasks. In this experience report, we present a TA training course that addresses this issue and prepares new TAs for their responsibilities. This includes conducting tutorials, tutoring and providing students with useful feedback in lab settings, and conducting assessments. In addition, we also aimed at creating a safe space for our TAs to discuss challenges and fears that they foresee or have already experienced as TAs. To do this, we developed an introductory course consisting of five modules, that are based on previous research on TAs in CS and in the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The modules are: HR questions, classroom teaching, helping and supervising in lab sessions, assessment, and reflection and discussion. The course is given in a blended learning format, where the first three modules are student-paced online modules, while the last two are synchronous meetings. To evaluate the training, we present course evaluation results from 53 TAs who enrolled in this 6-hours course during the 2020/2021 academic year. We conclude that this TA training course has been well appreciated by almost all the participants, discuss lessons learned and future plans., Part of conference proceedings: ISBN 978-1-4503-9070-5QC 20220308

Teaching assistants (TAs) are heavily used in computer science courses as a way to handle high enrollment and still being able to offer students individual tutoring and detailed assessments. TAs are themselves students who take on this additional role in parallel with their own studies at the same institution. Previous research has shown that being a TA can be challenging but has mainly been conducted on TAs from a single institution or within a single course. This paper offers a multi-institutional, multi-national perspective of challenges that TAs in computer science face. This has been done by conducting a thematic analysis of 180 reflective essays written by TAs from three institutions across Europe. The thematic analysis resulted in five main challenges: becoming a professional TA, student focused challenges, assessment, defining and using best practice, and threats to best practice. In addition, these challenges were all identified within the essays from all three institutions, indicating that the identified challenges are not particularly context-dependent. Based on these findings, we also outline implications for educators involved in TA training and coordinators of computer science courses with TAs., QC 20210902

Teaching assistants (TAs), students that are employed to assist the faculty, play an important role in many courses, by for instance conducting tutorials, helping and guiding students, and assessing assignments [1]. Especially in the courses that are given to a large number of students, TAs are widely used as a way to enable one-to-one tutoring and individual feedback [2]. However, previous studies have shown that TAs are not always offered sufficient training [3]. In 2019, the EECS school decided to initiate a mandatory training course for all computer science TAs [4], and this is a brief report on the experiences of this initiative. The purpose of this initiative has been to make our TAs more comfortable and prepared in their TA role. This includes multiple aspects, for instance, to empower the TAs to ask for well-defined lab grading criteria, if that is missing. The first offering of the TA training course was given in January 2020. The course consists of five modules (expected time for each module in parentheses): 1. HR questions (30 min) 2. Classroom teaching (60 min) 3. Helping students and supervising lab sessions (60 min) 4. Workshop regarding assessment (120 min) 5. Discussion and reflection seminar about modules 1-3 (90 min)Modules 1-3 are online modules in Canvas [5], each containing several quizzes. Modules 4-5 are scheduled sessions that first took place on campus but since March 2020 have been conducted through Zoom. During the spring semester, the course was given in Swedish. In the summer of 2020, the course material was translated to English, and modules 4 and 5 are since then offered in both English and Swedish. The TAs are paid the same hourly salary for taking part in the TA training as they earn for teaching. TAs that are employed as amanuensis (sv. amanuens) are also required to enroll in the course and for them it counts as part of their competency development. All TAs that have participated in the TA training course have been given the opport, QC 20210419

This Research, Full Paper presents a study on the experiences of teaching assistants (TAs) in Computer Science (CS) courses. TAs are widely used in CS education, to reduce the workload of faculty. A way to allow smaller groups of students in tutorials and individual guidance in lab sessions, even though the numbers of students in the classes are increasing. The aim of this study is to describe the TAs, own experiences of their role, which work tasks they have and how they are carried out. Fifteen semi-structured interviews with TAs, who were themselves studying towards a bachelor's or master's degree, were carried out and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results indicate that the TAs typically work alone with preparing the material for the tutorials and that they are given a high amount of freedom both regarding which examples to explain and which pedagogical approaches to use. During the lab sessions the students conduct lots of different tasks, related to assessment and tutoring. In the paper, we present a framework with the identified work tasks, with descriptions on how they were carried out. The thematic analysis resulted in six role descriptions; as a teacher, friend, tutor, grader, mentor and apprentice. Combining the roles as tutors and graders, can be experienced as tricky, especially if the instructions and grading criteria are lacking details. The TAs can also view themselves as both a teacher and a friend to their students, which could cause conflicts of interest to arise. The TAs could experience to be an apprentice to the course coordinator and senior TAs, but also to be a mentor for the students and more novice TA colleagues. The implications of this study could be of use for faculty who employ TAs in their courses or are conducting or planning TA training sessions. Based on the result, we have made some recommendations for TA training., QC 20210614

Feedback plays a vital role in learning. The earlier misconceptions are identified and corrected, the better for the development of a student's knowledge. Whilst this primarily benefits the student, this paper investigates the value of developing feedback analytics in order to discover new insights, patterns or issues within a course. To facilitate this, issue tracking was used within a large introductory computer science course to capture weekly feedback between teaching assistants and students. Key areas of feedback analytics were identified in terms of the amount of interaction and volume of discussion generated for weekly assignments over a twelve week period. These areas were further divided by focusing on the difference between weekly assignments and the teaching assistants. Applied to two years of data, feedback analytics revealed novel and useful insights about the course, its assignments and the interaction between students and teaching assistants, which helped to highlight areas for deeper course analysis and improvement., QC 20190918