Structuring CSed research studies

Abstract

Changing conditions for teaching increase our motivation to understand the teaching and learning process. First time investigators of educational settings often feel uncertain about what aspects are involved and how to design a meaningful investigation. This paper develops and describes an applied research model with the objective of providing computer science (CS) academics of with a structured overview of the inter-disciplinary research components of CS education research.The paper argues that adopting such a model has the potential to enhance the maturity, significance and applicability of CS education research studies by placing them in a more complete research context. This helps to make the outcomes more readily transportable to other teaching and learning situations.One aim of publicizing the model is to help inspire the growing numbers of people who are becoming interested in CS education research. In addition we hope to simplify the task of gaining a rapid understanding of the research design issues and options that are typically involved.