Poster #19 - Student Conceptions of Concurrency: The Concert Tickets Problem, Revisited

• In Event: 43.081 - MTCC Poster Session Nine
  In Poster Session: 43.081-2 - Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning: A Survey of Research

Abstract

Pedagogical content knowledge for computer science education (CS-PCK) is underdeveloped compared to other disciplines and little research exists on PCK related to concurrency. We seek to explore students' existing knowledge of and reasoning about concurrency concepts, with the goal that instructors can then build on this knowledge in their teaching. Using Lewandowski's concert-tickets problem, we collected natural language responses to a problem containing concurrency issues. We applied qualitative open coding to uncover common features in student solutions. We found that most students were able to identify the issue of potential double booking, and we identified key features, such as atomicity, timing, and visualization, that can be utilized by instructors for pedagogical interventions.

Authors

• Aubrey Lawson, Clemson University

• Eileen T Kraemer, Clemson University

• S. Megan Che, Clemson University