Case studies in admissions to and early performance in computer science degrees

Authors:
Sylvia Alexander;Martyn Clark;Ken Loose;June Amillo;Mats Daniels;Roger Boyle;Cary Laxer;Dermot Shinners-Kennedy
Affiliations:
University of Ulster, Belfast, UK;University of Leeds, Leeds, UK;University of Calgary, Canada;Universidad Politecnica Madrid, Spain;Uppsala University, Sweden;University of Leeds, Leeds, UK;Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Indiana;University of Limerick, Ireland
Venue:
Working group reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Year:
2003

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Abstract

We present seven case-studies of undergraduate recruitment to Computer Science courses together with analysis of students' success during the early part of their study. We focus particularly upon qualification on entry, the subjects studied in the early university curriculum, and student grades.We find that while university admissions are complex processes, there exists sufficient commonality to permit some useful comparisons. These suggest that predicting undergraduate performance on the basis of entry qualifications is fraught. Nevertheless, it seems that students who arrive at university with a record of success in earlier studies may be more likely to succeed than otherwise. In particular, good grades in pre-university study may indicate that they are more likely to do well in the mathematical part of the university curriculum. Conversely, we find nothing in entry qualifications to indicate which students will be successful in the study of programming.