Admitting Students through an Open Online Course in Programming

Leinonen, Juho; Ihantola, Petri; Leinonen, Antti; Nygren, Henrik; Kurhila, Jaakko; Luukkainen, Matti; Hellas, Arto

doi:10.1145/3291279.3339417

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…As a result, the program did not appear to open new pathways for people from under-represented groups in supply chain management. Other studies of blended programs have also found that the programs tend to have fewer students from underrepresented groups (Leinonen et al, 2019) and benefit already high-achieving students (Asarta & Schmidt, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Evaluating access, quality, and equity in online learning: A case study of a MOOC-based blended professional degree program

Littenberg-Tobias

Reich

2020

The Internet and Higher Education

101

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As massive open online courses (MOOCs) shift toward professional degree and certificate programs, can they become a global on-ramp for increasing access to emerging fields for underrepresented groups? This mixed-methods study addresses this question by examining one of the first MOOC-based blended professional degree programs, which admitted students to an accelerated residential master's program on the basis of performance in MOOCs and a proctored exam. We found that male students and students with master's degrees were more likely to complete the online program and the blended program had more male students and more students with master's degrees than students in the existing residential program. Students who enrolled in the blended graduate program earned higher average grades than students in the residential program earned in their in-person courses (3.86 vs 3.75, p<0.01). The findings of this study provide an example of how new online learning models can serve particular niches, but may not address broader equity challenges.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Evaluating access, quality, and equity in online learning: A case study of a MOOC-based blended professional degree program

Littenberg-Tobias

Reich

2020

The Internet and Higher Education

101

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“…Most of the students enter the computer science programme through what we call the "main intake", which consists of two possible intake routes: an entrance exam or high school matriculation examination grades. The computer science programme also used to have a third intake route for the main intake, a MOOC intake described in [11,20], and similar to [13]. The MOOC intake has since been discontinued, but is included in the data set for the sake of comparison.…”

Section: Methodology 31 Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is the largest group in the data, and the students from this intake usually have very few, if any, courses completed at the time of the admission. In the years under study, the university also had a MOOC intake, which allows students to complete a semester long programming MOOC and apply for the university if they succeed well enough [11,20]. These students have at least 10 credits from the programming MOOC.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Digital Education For All: Better Students Through Open Doors?

Pirttinen

Leinonen

Lemström

2021

Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education v. 1

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The Digital Education For All project (DEFA) is a joint collaboration of five universities to open first-year computer science courses online and for free to audiences outside of universities. Additionally, students who complete enough courses through the project can apply for a study right at any of the participating universities.Completing university courses as a method of applying for a study right measures students' motivation over a long period of time, and gives the students a clear idea of the content they will encounter during their studies, whereas a traditional entrance exam measures competence only at a single point in time. While high school grades, another typical intake mechanism besides entrance exams, measure generic study skills, course-based intake mechanisms may help with student retention, as students express and gain interest in the field while completing the required courses.This study is a preliminary examination of the student intake of the DEFA project in the University of Helsinki, one of the participating universities, and a comparison of how the students accepted through the project perform in studies compared to students accepted through other intake mechanisms. Students wishing to apply for a study right through this intake are expected to complete one regular study year's worth of first-year computer science and mathematics courses in approximately one calendar year. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics → Computing education.

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“…Recent research suggests that there is no difference in gender in completion rates of MOOCs in general [20], but STEM subjects may suffer from a lower retention rate for women [33]. Similarly, a recent study suggested that using a MOOC in programming for recruiting students into CS, while yielding students who perform better in their CS studies, may also lead to increased gender disparity [24].…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender Differences in Introductory Programming

Duran

Haaranen

Hellas

2020

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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We analyzed three introductory programming MOOCs and four introductory programming courses offered locally in a Finnish university. The course has been offered in all instances with roughly the same content, barring adjustments based on course feedback. We sought to understand how gender interacts with participating in the course in both instances. In particular, we looked at the differences in persistence, confidence, interest in CS, prior experience, and performance between men and women.Overall, we found that men have more prior experience in both instances and have a higher interest in a CS degree. Furthermore, men perform slightly better on the MOOC while there was no significant difference in performance when it came to gender in the local instance. Aligned with prior research, we found a considerable gap in confidence between male and female students in both instances. At the same time, while women are still underrepresented in CS, we observe a considerable increase in women attending the MOOC. Unfortunately, women are also more likely to drop out early on in the MOOC than men.

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Admitting Students through an Open Online Course in Programming

Cited by 10 publications

References 27 publications

Evaluating access, quality, and equity in online learning: A case study of a MOOC-based blended professional degree program

Evaluating access, quality, and equity in online learning: A case study of a MOOC-based blended professional degree program

Digital Education For All: Better Students Through Open Doors?

Gender Differences in Introductory Programming

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