Multi-Institutional CS Education Research on a budget

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DEBUG
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Research of CarolDweck, Stanford
intelligence can be developed
intelligence is static
Fixed Mindset
Fixed Mindset
avoid challenges
embrace challenges
give up easily
persist in the face of setbacks
see effort as fruitless or worse
see effort as the path to mastery
ignore useful negative feedback
learn from criticism
...feel threatened by the success of others
find lessons and inspiration in the success of
others
Based on a graphic by Nigel Holmes available from
http//www.pvusd.net/Departments/GATE/dweck/
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Stanford Study At Risk Students with GM Higher
GPA (Aaronson, et. al.)

• 3 1-hr about 10 says apart, 2-5 people
• Answer handwritten, fake pen pal lettersto at
  risk middle schoolers build in examplesfrom
  own life
• Shown video about how intelligence is
  growable(with evidence from brain researchers)
• Picture taken of participant and clipped to
  letter
• Got a thank you note from pen-pal and teacher
• Wrote 2nd letter in next session
• 3rd Session reworked letters into speeches,
  audiotaped them, listened to audiotapes 2 times

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Our Study

• Handout
• Mini lecture for 10-15 minutes
• Follow-up saying is believing activity (5-10
  min)

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Results Intervention failed
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Results Intervention failed Control
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When life gives you lemons
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present them at ICER (2008)
Follow-up survey
Focus groups
Do you remember a 10 minute talk at the beginning
of your CS1 class by researcher? Do you
remember completing an exercise called The Power
of the Challenging Task which asked you to
describe something difficult that you have
mastered after persevering and to give advice to
future students on coping with the challenge of
learning to program? Did any of the in-class
talk on growth mind sets or the Challenging
Task exercise affect your attitude or approach
to programming and/or debugging?
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Take Aways... Growth MindsetsNot for Computing?
15 minute lecture
60 hours of compiler errors

• Quentin Cutts, Glasgow
• Reinforcing message on return of every
  programming homework
• New compiler technology?

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More details available

• B. Simon, B. Hanks, L. Murphy, S. Fitzgerald, R.
  McCauley, L. Thomas and C. Zander. Saying Isn't
  Necessarily Believing Influencing Self-theories
  in Computing. In ICER '08 Proceedings of the
  Third International Computing Education Research
  Workshop, Sept. 2008.
• B. Hanks, L. Murphy, B. Simon, R. McCauley and C.
  Zander. CS1 Students Speak Advice for Students
  by Students. Forthcoming in Proceedings of the
  Fortieth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer
  Science Education, March 2009.

This material is based upon work supported by the
National Science Foundation under Grant No.
0647688. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions
or recommendations expressed in this material are
those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation.