Computing is Not a Rock Band: Student Understanding of the Computing Disciplines

This paper reports the initial findings of a multi-year study that is surveying major and non-major students' understanding of the different computing disciplines. This study is based on work originally conducted by Courte and Bishop-Clark from 2009 [7] and then repeated by Battig and Shariq in 2011 [3], but which uses a broadened study instrument that provided additional forms of analysis. Data was collected from 199 students from a single institution who were computer science, information systems/information technology and non-major students taking a variety of introductory computing courses. Results show that undergraduate computing students are more likely to rate tasks as being better fits to computer disciplines than are their non-major (NM) peers. Uncertainty among respondents did play a large role in the results and is discussed alongside implications for teaching and further research.