Search

In this article, we address the question of why computing students choose to learn computing topics on their own. A better understanding of why some students choose to learn on their own may help us to motivate other students to develop this important skill. In addition, it may help in curriculum design; if we need to leave some topics out of our expanding curriculum, a good choice might be those topics that students readily learn on their own. Based on a thematic analysis of 17 semistructured interviews, we found that computing students' motivations for self-directed learning fall into four general themes: projects, social and peer interactions, joy of learning, and fear. Under these, we describe several more specific subthemes, illustrated in the words of the students. The project-related and social motivations are quite prominent. Although these motivations appear in the literature, they received greater emphasis from our interviewees. Perhaps most characteristic of computing is the motivation to learn to complete some project, both projects done for fun and projects required for school or work.

Even though it is a common occurrence in practice, maintaining haemostasis can sometimes become a challenging issue in case of trauma, perioperative period, coagulation disorders, cancers, etc. Hemostatic materials are extensively used to assist in the cessation of bleeding. However, the definition of efficiency of haemostasis varies between intended procedures. This paper explores the feasibility of incorporating agents to increase the efficiency of local haemostasis. Pectin or β -D galacto hexopyranuronic acid/β Gal A, a structural polysaccharide widely present in terrestrial plants having an intrinsic hemostatic potential, is blended with gelatin and is explored in modulating passive haemostasis. The sponges are physico chemically characterized, and their hemostatic efficiency is evaluated in vitro using various assays. Biocompatibility evaluation is done by in vitro cytotoxicity assay. The results suggest that this biopolymer combination is a promising candidate for hemostatic control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This phenomenographic study opens the classroom door to investigate teachers' experiences of students learning difficult computing topics. Three distinct themes are identified and analysed. "Why" do students succeed or fail to learn these concepts? "What" actions do teachers perceive will ameliorate the difficulties facing students? "Who" is responsible, and for what, in the learning situation? Theoretical work on threshold concepts and conceptual change deals with mechanisms and processes associated with learning difficult material [Meyer, J. and Land, R., 2005. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. "Higher Education", 49 (3), 373-388; Entwistle, N., 2007. Conceptions of learning and the experience of understanding: thresholds, contextual influences, and knowledge objects. "In:" S. Vosniadou, A. Baltas and X. Vamvakoussi, eds. "Re-framing the conceptual change approach in learning and instruction". Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, chap. 11]. With this work as a background, we concentrate on the perceptions of teachers. Where do teachers feel that the difficulties lie when studying the troublesome knowledge in computing? Student and teacher-centric views of teaching reported in other literature are also to be seen in our results. The first two categories in the "what" and "who" themes are teacher-centric. Higher level categories in all themes show increasingly learner centred conceptions of the instructional role. However, the nature of the categories in the "why" theme reveals a new dimension dealing with teacher beliefs specific to the nature of troublesome knowledge in computing. A number of prior studies in tertiary teaching concentrate on approaches to teaching [Trigwell, K. and Prosser, M., 2004. Development and use of the approaches to teaching inventory. "Educational Psychology Review", 16 (4), 409-424], and attitudes to scholarship of teaching and learning [Ashwin, P. and Trigwell, K., 2004. Investigating educational development. "In: Making sense of staff and educational development", 117-131]. Our focus on learning difficult topics extends this work, investigating teacher conceptions of causality in relation to learning difficulties. We argue that teacher conceptions of enabling factors, for learning difficult computing topics, can act to limit the nature and scope of academics' pedagogical responses. Improved awareness of teacher's beliefs regarding student learning difficulties both extends and complements existing efforts to develop a more student-centred computing pedagogy. (Contains 2 notes, 1 table and 3 figures.)

"Threshold concepts" are concepts that, among other things, transform the way a student looks at a discipline. Although the term "threshold" might suggest that the transformation occurs at a specific point in time, an "aha" moment, it seems more common (at least in computing) that a longer time period is required. This time period is referred to as the "liminal space". In this paper, we summarise our findings concerning how computing students experience the liminal space and discuss how this might affect teaching. Most of our findings so far relate to software engineering. As it is likely that similar liminal spaces occur in other engineering disciplines, these findings have relevance across engineering education.

Debugging is often difficult and frustrating for novices. Yet because students typically debug outside the classroom and often in isolation, instructors rarely have the opportunity to closely observe students while they debug. This paper describes the details of an exploratory study of the debugging skills and behaviors of contemporary novice Java programmers. Based on a modified replication of Katz and Anderson's study of novices, we sought to broadly survey the modern landscape of novice debugging abilities. As such, this study reports general quantitative results and fills in the picture with qualitative detail from a relatively small, but varied sample. Comprehensive interviews involving both a programming and a debugging task, followed by a semi-structured interview and a questionnaire, were conducted with 21 CS2 students at seven colleges and universities. While many subjects successfully debugged a representative set of typical CS1 bugs, there was a great deal of variation in their success at the programming and debugging tasks. Most of the students who were good debuggers were good novice programmers, although not all of the good programmers were successful at debugging. Students employed a variety of strategies to find 70% of all bugs and of the bugs they found they were able to fix 97% of them. They had the most difficulty with malformed statements, such as arithmetic errors and incorrect loop conditions. Our results confirm many findings from previous studies (some quite old)--most notably that once students find bugs, they can fix them. However, the results also suggest that some changes have occurred in the student population, particularly an increased use of debugging tools and online resources, as well as the use of pattern matching, which has not previously been reported. (Contains 4 tables, 5 figures, and 1 note.)