One indication of the maturation of Computer Science Education as a research-based discipline is the recent emergence of several large-scale studies spanning multiple institutions. This paper examines a “family ” of these multi-institutional, multi-national studies, detailing core elements and points of difference in both study design and the organization of the research team, and highlighting the costs and benefits associated with the different approaches.

In this paper, we present the results of one aspect of a multinational, multi-institutional study of computer programming students. Specifically, this paper reports on an exploration of relationships between novice programmers' map-drawing styles (landmark, route or survey) and success in a first programming course at tertiary level. Relationships were found between mapCopyright 2006, Australian Computer Society, Inc. This paper appeared at the Eighth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2006), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, January 2006. Conferences in Research in Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 52. Denise Tolhurst and Samuel Mann Eds. Reproduction for academic, not-for profit purposes permitted provided this text is included.

A multi-national, multi-institutional study investigating introductory programming courses drew on student participants from eleven institutions, mainly in Australasia, during the academic year of 2004. A number of diagnostic tasks were used to explore cognitive, behavioural, and attitudinal factors such as spatial visualisation and reasoning, the ability to articulate strategies for commonplace search and design tasks, and attitudes to studying. This paper reports in detail on the task that required participants to articulate a commonplace search strategy. The results indicate that .

This paper describes a multi-national, multi-institutional study that investigated introductory programming courses .