Career aspirations, perceived instrumentality, and achievement in undergraduate computer science courses

Development and Evaluation of the Nebraska Assessment of Computing Knowledge

“…With this large sample of undergraduate students in CS courses, the NACK demonstrated adequate internal consistency, unidimensionality, and well-functioning items and response options, and no items showed gender-based DIF. Furthermore, scores on the test were associated with course grades and progression through the CS curriculum, and have previously been shown to correlate with measures of student motivation and self-regulated learning Peteranetz et al, 2018). To our knowledge, this set of analyses marks the most thorough evaluation of a non-commercial test of computational thinking and CS knowledge.…”

“…Negative correlations were found between NACK scores and difficulty self-regulating, maladaptive goal setting, and exogenous perceived instrumentality. The relationships with endogenous and exogenous perceived instrumentality was later replicated, and a positive correlation between NACK scores and aspirations for a career in CS was also found (Peteranetz et al, 2018). Notably, these relationships with perceived instrumentality and career aspirations were stronger for NACK scores than they were for course grades.…”

“…As a result, few students taking the test are expected score very low or very high. Details about the early phases of test development have been previously reported (Nelson et al, 2015), and the full test is available for download on the project website 1 and in the Supplementary Material section (originally published in Peteranetz et al, 2018). Although the test was originally developed for introductory CS students, it has also been given in intermediate and advanced CS courses.…”

Analysis of Socioeconomic Status, Gender, and Academic Achievements to Student Career Maturity

“…They tend to pay attention to how they play a role in career achievement. The perceived role in learning related to a planned career was a more substantial effect than the value of the course (Peteranetz et al 2018). Although many have found that adolescents with a secure future orientation, who have invested in career planning activities tend to perform better in school and vice versa, high academic achievement further reinforces the positive outlook of teens about their vocational future.…”

IUSE Computational Creativity: Improving Learning, Achievement, and Retention in Computer Science for CS and non-CS Undergraduates

“…In all classes, students complete surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester that assess their motivation, strategic regulation, affective reactions to the course, and, in the implementation classes, reactions to each of the CCEs. The end-of-semester survey includes a 13-item test of core CS concepts and computational thinking that is used to compare students' CS knowledge across classes [5]. Students also have the option of giving us permission to obtain their course grades and grade point average (GPA) at the end of the semester and course enrollment for three semesters after the semester during which they participated in the study.…”