AI and ML in School Level Computing Education: Who, What and Where?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature relating to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) education at school level. We conducted a search of the ACM Full-text Collection and 33 papers from the 197 search results were selected for analysis. In this context, we considered the research questions: 1) Who has been the focus of the research?, 2) What course content appears in the research?, and 3) Where has the research taken place? We find that there has been a recent marked increase in research on AI/ML for school level education, although most of this has been based in the United States. The majority of this research focuses on students, with very little specifically addressing teachers, experts, parents, or the wider school community. There is also a lack of attention paid to research focused on women or those from historically underrepresented groups and equity of access to AI/ML courses for school-level students. Finally, the content covered in the courses described in this research varies widely, possibly because there is so little alignment to computer science (CS) frameworks or curricula.