Research
My research is based in Computing Science Education, working with the Centre for Computing Science Education (CCSE) team in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. My focus is on underlying, usually considered innate, skills which may contribute to aptitude in computing science, specifically looking at the area of spatial skills. Spatial skills have been linked to success in STEM areas for many years, though the relationship with computing science has not been well explored and is more tenuous than other areas like engineering or chemistry.
The purpose of my research is to identify specific factors of spatial skills which appear to be related to computing science and investigate whether the relationship is causal, indicating that training these factors would lead to an increase in computing performance.
In addition to this research, I Was previously employed as a research assistant in the CCSE involved in the Computer Science department's endeavour to deliver Graduate Apprenticeships in 2019. The research is currently focussing on existing research in work based learning and a large scale consultation with both practitioners of existing programmes and industry partners.
Publications
-
research-article
Relating Spatial Skills and Expression Evaluation
Work connecting spatial skills to computing has used course grades or marks, or general programming tests as the measure of computing ability. In order to map the relationship between spatial skills and computing more precisely, this paper picks out a ...
-
abstract
Investigating Spatial Skills in Computing Education
There is an intriguing connection between spatial skills and CS: those with better spatial skills tend to do better in many CS related tasks. Since spatial skills are malleable, it is tempting to simply introduce spatial skills training courses to ...
-
research-article
The Effect of a Spatial Skills Training Course in Introductory Computing
Spatial skills have been associated with STEM success for decades. Research has shown that training spatial skills can have a positive impact on outcomes in STEM domains such as engineering, mathematics and physics; however -- despite some promising ...
-
short-paper
Addressing mixed levels of prior knowledge by individualising learning pathways in a Degree Apprenticeship Summer School
Teaching an introductory programming course is beset by two core challenges: students enter the course with different levels of prior experience; and, for whatever reason, they progress at different rates. This is at odds with a typical face-to-face ...
-
research-article
Pass Rates in Introductory Programming and in other STEM Disciplines
Simon,
Andrew Luxton-Reilly,
Vangel V. Ajanovski,
Eric Fouh,
Christabel Gonsalvez,
Juho Leinonen,
Jack Parkinson,
Matthew Poole,
Neena Thota
Vast numbers of publications in computing education begin with the premise that programming is hard to learn and hard to teach. Many papers note that failure rates in computing courses, and particularly in introductory programming courses, are higher ...
-
tutorial
Exploring Spatial Skills and Computing in Primary and Secondary Education
This workshop aims to break down the connection between spatial skills and STEM - particularly computing - and highlight existing research of value, presenting an argument for spatial skills instruction in schools. We will discuss known challenges and ...
-
research-article
Developing a Work-based Software Engineering Degree in Collaboration with Industry
Work-based learning has been in practice in Software Engineering for some time, but only in recent years has it been introduced as a pathway to an honours-level undergraduate degree across the UK. Through the lens of one such scheme, the Graduate ...
-
poster
Devising Work-based Learning Curricula with Apprentice Research Software Engineers
Work-based learning (WBL) is a delivery model that attempts to address the isolation of theory and practice by integrating them into a single programme. The concern is that through lack of experience and understanding, both universities and industry may ...
-
abstract
Pass Rates in STEM Disciplines Including Computing
Simon,
Andrew Luxton-Reilly,
Vangel Ajanovski,
Eric Fouh,
Chris Gonsalvez,
Juho Leinonen,
Jack Parkinson,
Matthew Poole,
Neena Thota
Vast numbers of publications in computing education begin with the premise that programming is hard to learn and hard to teach. Many papers note that failure rates in computing courses, and particularly in introductory programming courses, are higher ...
-
research-article
Experience Report: Thinkathon -- Countering an "I Got It Working" Mentality with Pencil-and-Paper Exercises
Quintin Cutts,
Matthew Barr,
Mireilla Bikanga Ada,
Peter Donaldson,
Steve Draper,
Jack Parkinson,
Jeremy Singer,
Lovisa Sundin
Goal-directed problem-solving labs can lead a student to believe that the most important achievement in a first programming course is to get programs working. This is counter to research indicating that code comprehension is an important developmental ...
-
research-article
Investigating the Relationship Between Spatial Skills and Computer Science
The relationship between spatial skills training and computer science learning is unclear. Reported experiments provide tantalising, though not convincing, evidence that training a programming student's spatial skills may accelerate the development of ...