Collaborative Research: Transforming Computing Education Research through Replication and Mentoring

About This Grant

This project aims to serve the national interest by organizing coordinated multi-site replication studies on open computing education research questions. Research relies on the ability to replicate studies to understand the limits and applicability of research findings and to build confidence in results. Replication studies are especially important in computing education research where results are drawn from human subjects studying computing. The goal of this IUSE:EDU level two Institutional and Community Transformation project is to create cohorts of researchers to design replication packages for rigorous research that will support cross-study meta-analysis, build fundamental knowledge on key topics, and provide the foundation for computing education research theory building. The project will involve approximately ten core replication designers and forty replication participants impacting thousands of students across the United States. A replication design team will be convened to create replication packages that address research goals and questions of interest to the computing education research community. A project team will then be formed to recruit a series of replication participants who will run the study in their context using the replication packages produced by the replication design team. Members of the computing education research community will be invited to run the replications in their classrooms, contributing to the overall investigation into the topic. Results of these studies will address common research questions and lay the foundation for computing-specific educational theory. The results of the coordinated, multi-site replication studies will provide deeper insights into important computing education research topics and will provide a better understanding of the impacts of various contextual factors on improving student learning and success in computing. The project evaluation will consist of formative and summative assessments of the replication process and objective measures such as publications and citations. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.  This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.