Models and Methods for Computing Education Research

Daniels, M. and Pears, A.

We have been engaged in computing education research for close to two decades. One characteristic of the field has been a preponderance of exploratory research, Marco Polo papers as Valentine termed them. Even considering the entire research corpus it is hard to discern a clear trend in terms of models and methods for conducting research. While some prominent researchers, such as Fincher, have established a tradition of mixed method research and multi-institutional studies, these approaches form a branch of the discipline and do not constitute a dominant paradigm. Indeed computing education research demonstrates an observable eclecticism in relation to method, combining as it does approaches from a range of qualitative and quantitative research traditions. A consequence of this is that we have spent time on thinking about the research area as a whole. We believe that a key defining feature of computing education research is the focus on learning in the discipline. The point of departure for much computing education research is consequently a need to address educational challenges in the discipline, rather than a standpoint in an educational tradition. This places the research objective, or question, in focus and makes the choice of method a secondary concern for many computing education researchers. In this article we discuss the nature of a broader emerging paradigm for conducting educational research, and a framework which can scaffold working within this paradigm.

Cite as: Daniels, M. and Pears, A. (2012). Models and Methods for Computing Education Research. In Proc. Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2012) Melbourne, Australia. CRPIT, 123. Raadt, M.D. and Carbone, A. Eds., ACS. 95-102

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