Faculty Perceptions of Teaching in Undergraduate Computer Science Education (original) (raw)

The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes of computer science faculty members towards undergraduate teaching. The questions addressed in this study are: (1) How important is effective teaching to computer science faculty members at the undergraduate level and how important do they perceive effective teaching to be to their institution? 2) How much teacher training have computer science faculty members received? 3) What do computer science faculty members believe about teaching? 4) What are the current teaching practices of computer science faculty members and what influences those practices? 5) What incentives or rewards are offered to faculty members who try innovative teaching methods or receive additional training? The motivation for investigating these questions is a general dissatisfaction among students with teaching quality and a desire of faculty members to improve the efficacy of recruitment and retention of students in computer science programs. Over three hundred faculty members participated in an online survey in the Fall of 2008 that addressed the questions stated above. The results of this study helped the author develop and make recommendations to help computer science departments understand faculty attitudes towards teaching and influence their choices of teaching methods.