Exploring a framework of computational expression.

My PhD research examines how the computational skills needed in Computer Science manifest in the inferential steps students make as they solve problems, and how CS researchers and educators can use this knowledge. I will discuss a framework for computational abstraction, motivated by my personal experience as an educator and inspired by various disciplines. Its aim is to guide students in expressing a computational problem at four different levels of specificity. Student inferential reasoning in navigating through intermediate stages of the problem will be examined and where possible misconceptions will be explored.