Fostering of self-efficacy, social and study networks to enhance the transition and progression of first year computing undergraduates

In the UK, more computing undergraduates fail to progress to the second year of their degree than in any other subject, to the detriment of the country’s economy, universities and not least the students themselves. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the contribution to knowledge of a body of six published works on a range of factors in students’ successful completion of their crucial first year. The publications are based on empirical studies and span a period between 2014 and 2022, comprising five ACM and IEEE conference papers and one journal article. The empirical studies are largely based around an initiative to implement the playing of a business simulation in small teams of three students as part of the first year curriculum. The environment of the modern university in Scotland in which the studies took place helps to characterise the student cohorts who participated in the studies and their habitus. The business simulation initiative provided an extended groupwork activity, giving the opportunity for students’ self-efficacy, confidence and friendships to be explored through six mixed methods and qualitative studies, in line with the work’s pragmatic research paradigm. The first study reveals that final year students still value and remember the teamworking and presentation skills gained by working together in first year; this study introduces friendship as a factor that strengthens students’ resilience during this transitional year. Far from conforming to the stereotype of “geeky” loners, these entrants understand the benefits of soft skills for later education and employability.A new instrument has been constructed and refined based on successful first years’ own experiences of the everyday challenges, almost all of which are unrelated to programming or other technical subjects, but which can nevertheless hamper academic achievement. The study proposes that, rather than major upheavals, it is more often the accumulation of small obstacles and inconveniences that ultimately lead to non-progression to second year. This theory of academic buoyancy is borne out by the findings of the experimental administration of the new instrument to measure entrants’ self-efficacy in these factors at the beginning and end of an academic session. Its key finding is that entrants experience the greatest loss of selfefficacy in their motivation to work and study.Two cross-sectional studies allow insights into successive cohorts of entrants’ opinions and examples of the style of teaching they have experienced in high school and college. This enables an evaluation of the newly implemented Curriculum for Excellence, which champions constructivist methods but which is not evident from the responses of the second cohort. Most interviewees are critical of their teachers’ narrowly didactic pedagogic style, stating that although it hasn’t prepared them well for learning at university, they do expect to assume greater responsibility for their learning during their degree.Whilst all the studies support the central thesis of the work, that fostering social and study networks amongst entrants strengthens their academic integration and buoyancy to withstand the challenges of transition, the fifth and sixth studies elaborate specifically on students’ experience of working together in small groups and friendship. The fifth paper consolidates and enriches the findings of the first study, discovering that entrants who have experienced the simulation appreciate the soft skills they gain but also value the improvement to their social confidence and ability to communicate with fellow students. The key finding from the final study is that entrants attach importance to the support to mental health given by their friends. Drawing on all the findings, a novel model is constructed that illustrates the relationship between factors in students’ background, attributes and capacity for learning, their experience of a groupwork initiative, and their successful transition and progress through first year.