Blogs (4) >>
Sat 23 Mar 2024 14:35 - 15:00 at Meeting Room E146 - Reaching New Audiences Chair(s): Hedayat Zarkoob

Data Science (DS) has emerged as a new academic discipline where students are introduced to data-centric thinking and generating data-driven insights through programming. Unlike traditional introductory programming education, which focuses on program syntax and core Computer Science (CS) topics (e.g., algorithms and data structures), introductory DS education emphasizes skills such as studying the data at hand to gain insights and making effective use of programming libraries (e.g., re, NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn). To better understand learners’ needs and pain points when they are introduced to DS programming, we investigated a large online course on data manipulation designed for graduate students who do not have a CS or Statistics undergraduate degree. We qualitatively analyzed incorrect student code submissions for computational notebook-based programming assignments in Python. We identified common mistakes and grouped them into the following themes: (1) programming language and environment misconceptions, (2) logical mistakes due to data or problem-statement misunderstanding or incorrectly dealing with missing values, (3) semantic mistakes from incorrect usage of DS libraries, and (4) suboptimal coding. Our work provides instructors valuable insights to understand student needs in introductory DS courses and improve course pedagogy, along with recommendations for developing assessment and feedback tools to better support students in large courses.

Sat 23 Mar

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

13:45 - 15:00
Reaching New AudiencesPapers at Meeting Room E146
Chair(s): Hedayat Zarkoob University of British Columbia
13:45
25m
Talk
CONTENTR: An Experiential Game for Teaching Value Tradeoffs in Social Media GovernanceOnlineIn-Person
Papers
Anna Lenhart Univeristy of Maryland, Sarah Gilbert Cornell University, Katie Shilton University of Maryland
DOI
14:10
25m
Talk
Reaching Black Women interested in Computing: The importance of organizational tiesOnlineIn-PersonMSI
Papers
Bailey Brown Spelman College, Rebecca Zarch SageFox Consulting Group, Amanda Menier SageFox Consulting Group, Talia Goldwasser SageFox Consulting Group, Megean Garvin UMBC, Celeste Lee Spelman College, Jayce R. Warner Gibson Consulting Group, Tamara Pearson Georgia Institute of Technology
DOI
14:35
25m
Talk
Investigating Student Mistakes in Introductory Data Science ProgrammingOnlineIn-Person
Papers
Anjali Singh University of Michigan School of Information, Anna Fariha , Christopher Brooks University of Michigan, Gustavo Soares Microsoft, Austin Z. Henley Microsoft, Ashish Tiwari Microsoft, Chethan M Microsoft, Heeryung Choi MIT, Sumit Gulwani Microsoft
DOI