TY - GEN
T1 - The dimensions of variation in the teaching of data structures
AU - Lister, Raymond
AU - Box, Ilona
AU - Morrison, Briana
AU - Tenenberg, Josh
AU - Westbrook, D. Suzanne
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - The current debate about the teaching of data structures is hampered because, as a community, we usually debate specifics about data structure implementations and libraries, when the real level of disagreement remains implicit - the intent behind our teaching. This paper presents a phenomenographic study of the intent of CS educators for teaching data structures in CS2. Based on interviews with Computer Science educators and analysis of CS literature, we identified five categories of intent: developing transferable thinking, improving students' programming skills, knowing "what's under the hood", knowledge of software libraries, and component thinking. The CS community needs to first debate at the level of these categories before moving to more specific issues. This study also serves as an example of how phenomenographic analysis can be used to inform debate on syllabus design in general.
AB - The current debate about the teaching of data structures is hampered because, as a community, we usually debate specifics about data structure implementations and libraries, when the real level of disagreement remains implicit - the intent behind our teaching. This paper presents a phenomenographic study of the intent of CS educators for teaching data structures in CS2. Based on interviews with Computer Science educators and analysis of CS literature, we identified five categories of intent: developing transferable thinking, improving students' programming skills, knowing "what's under the hood", knowledge of software libraries, and component thinking. The CS community needs to first debate at the level of these categories before moving to more specific issues. This study also serves as an example of how phenomenographic analysis can be used to inform debate on syllabus design in general.
KW - CS2
KW - Data structures
KW - Introductory programming
KW - Java Collections Framework
KW - Phenomenography
KW - STL
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=10044222071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=10044222071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:10044222071
SN - 1581138369
SN - 9781581138368
T3 - Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
SP - 92
EP - 96
BT - Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science
T2 - Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
Y2 - 28 June 2004 through 30 June 2004
ER -