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Vignettes are short stories along with a set of questions that engage the reader to comment on the story. Vignettes have been used in professional academic programs (e.g., teacher preparation and medical education), for professional development in various fields (e.g., teaching ethics in psychology and medicine), and in various research fields for data collection. In this work, vignettes are used to elicit students' understanding of dispositions in computing education. Professional dispositions enable behaviors that are valued in the workplace, such as adaptability or self-directedness. They are often explicitly stated in computing job postings. While the relevance of dispositions is widely recognized in the workplace, only recently have curricular guidelines for computing programs recognized professional dispositions as an integral part of competencies and as complementary to knowledge and skills. There is scarce literature on the use of vignettes in teaching undergraduate computing, or on how best to foster dispositions in students. In this project, four faculty from four diverse institutions in the U.S., along with three consulting experts, have collaborated to design and evaluate the use of vignettes in the classroom. This paper documents researchers' efforts to gain insights into students' perceptions of dispositions through the use of vignettes. Such insights may guide educators to identify pedagogical strategies for fostering dispositions among students. This paper presents an iterative process for vignette design with continuous review by researchers and focus group members. The vignettes in this study use stories of situations which demonstrate the application of a disposition, drawn from various fields and walks of life to represent diverse groups and experiences. Students are presented with the vignette story and asked to identify the disposition illustrated. To elicit students' understanding of dispositions in terms of their personal behaviors, students are asked to describe a situation in which they have experienced the disposition. Lessons learned in the design and use of vignettes are discussed.
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Fostering Dispositions and Engaging Computing Educators
Dispositions are cultivable behaviors desirable in the workplace. Examples of dispositions are being adaptable, meticulous, and self-directed. The eleven dispositions described in the CC2020 report should not be confused with the professional knowledge of computing topics, or with skills, including technical skills, along with cross-disciplinary skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, or communication. Dispositions, more inherent to human characteristics, identify personal qualities and behavioral patterns important for successful professional careers. The leaders of this special session collaborate on a multi-institutional project funded by the National Science Foundation. Using their experiences at four higher education institutions, they will demonstrate how to foster dispositions among computing students through two hands-on activities. The audience will get first-hand experience using reflection exercises and vignettes, and will participate in debating their design, merits, and limitations. The resulting interaction will provide the audience ample time to discuss the benefits and challenges of incorporating and fostering dispositions in computing programs. It is hoped that participants will leave with concrete ideas on how to extend the current work to their own courses, programs, and institutions.
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- PAR ID:
- 10413192
- Publisher / Repository:
- dl.acm.org
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2023)
- Volume:
- 2
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1216 to 1217
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020) report, issued by the ACM and IEEE Computer Society, identified knowledge, skills, and dispositions as the three main components of competency for undergraduate programs in computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems, information technology, and software engineering, as well as data science. As earlier generations of curricular guidelines in computing have described knowledge and skills to some extent, the notion of dispositions is relatively new to computing. Dispositions are cultivable behaviors, such as adaptability, meticulousness, and self-directedness, that are desirable in the workplace. Multiple employer surveys and interviews confirm that dispositions are as crucial for success in the workplace as the knowledge and skills students develop in their academic programs of study. As such, the CC2020 report describes eleven dispositions that are expected of competent computing graduates. These are distinct and separate from the technical knowledge and disciplinary skills of computing and engineering. Dispositions are also distinct from baseline or cross-disciplinary skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. In contrast, dispositions are inherently human characteristics that describe individual qualities and behavioral patterns that lead to professional success. Dispositions are learnable, not necessarily teachable. This work-in-progress paper motivates dispositions within computing disciplines and presents the background of this approach. It also discusses the use of reflection exercises and vignettes in understanding, promoting, and fostering behavioral patterns that undergraduate computing students identify as related to dispositions they experience in the course. Preliminary data and results from the study are also presented.more » « less
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The Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020) report, issued by the ACM and IEEE Computer Society, identified knowledge, skills, and dispositions as the three main components of competency for undergraduate programs in computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems, information technology, and software engineering, as well as data science. As earlier generations of curricular guidelines in computing have described knowledge and skills to some extent, the notion of dispositions is relatively new to computing. Dispositions are cultivable behaviors, such as adaptability, meticulousness, and self-directedness, that are desirable in the workplace. Multiple employer surveys and interviews confirm that dispositions are as crucial for success in the workplace as the knowledge and skills students develop in their academic programs of study. As such, the CC2020 report describes eleven dispositions that are expected of competent computing graduates. These are distinct and separate from the technical knowledge and disciplinary skills of computing and engineering. Dispositions are also distinct from baseline or cross-disciplinary skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. In contrast, dispositions are inherently human characteristics that describe individual qualities and behavioral patterns that lead to professional success. Dispositions are learnable, not necessarily teachable. This work-in-progress paper motivates dispositions within computing disciplines and presents the background of this approach. It also discusses the use of reflection exercises and vignettes in understanding, promoting, and fostering behavioral patterns that undergraduate computing students identify as related to dispositions they experience in the course. Preliminary data and results from the study are also presented.more » « less
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The Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020) report, issued by the ACM and IEEE Computer Society, identified knowledge, skills, and dispositions as the three main components of competency for undergraduate programs in computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems, information technology, and software engineering, as well as data science. As earlier generations of curricular guidelines in computing have described knowledge and skills to some extent, the notion of dispositions is relatively new to computing. Dispositions are cultivable behaviors, such as adaptability, meticulousness, and self-directedness, that are desirable in the workplace. Multiple employer surveys and interviews confirm that dispositions are as crucial for success in the workplace as the knowledge and skills students develop in their academic programs of study. As such, the CC2020 report describes eleven dispositions that are expected of competent computing graduates. These are distinct and separate from the technical knowledge and disciplinary skills of computing and engineering. Dispositions are also distinct from baseline or cross-disciplinary skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. In contrast, dispositions are inherently human characteristics that describe individual qualities and behavioral patterns that lead to professional success. Dispositions are learnable, not necessarily teachable. This work-in-progress paper motivates dispositions within computing disciplines and presents the background of this approach. It also discusses the use of reflection exercises and vignettes in understanding, promoting, and fostering behavioral patterns that undergraduate computing students identify as related to dispositions they experience in the course. Preliminary data and results from the study are also presented.more » « less
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This work-in-progress research paper shares the findings of a survey of computing professionals regarding the importance of various dispositions on the job. Survey findings from recent graduates also include their perception of how well each disposition was covered in their undergraduate courses. Dispositions are beliefs, attitudes, or values, such as being ethical, being persistent, and valuing collaboration. Dispositions impact whether individuals will apply their knowledge and skills appropriately in any given situation. There is increasing recognition of the importance of dispositions in the realm of computing education, as evidenced by recent computing curricular guidelines (e.g., IT2017 and CC2020). However, few existing studies of professionals explicitly discriminate between dispositions and other types of competencies (e.g., cross-disciplinary or “soft” skills). Furthermore, little research has been focused on the degree to which professionals believe that dispositions have been adequately covered by computing education in the United States. This study will present the findings of a survey of computing professionals, utilizing items based on on a list of 30 dispositions derived from earlier studies. It will present practitioners’ perceptions of the importance of each of the 30 dispositions and will also present the satisfaction recent graduates (who have graduated with an undergraduate degree within the last 5 years) have with the coverage of these dispositions during their undergraduate experience. Findings of this paper may reveal not only of the importance of dispositions in general, but which dispositions are most important, and which are most or least covered in current educational programs. The research team recommends that higher education administrators, curriculum designers and individual faculty members use the data-informed disposition list, in conjunction with college/university and departmental vision and values, to select a small number of dispositions to purposefully incorporate across their program. Findings may also be of interest to curricular guideline committees and scholars interested in dispositions, competency-based education, character education, or virtue ethics.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3569592
