Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science
Education Across Europe

D 2021

Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe

RIESE, Emma, Madeleine LORÅS, Martin UKROP and Tomáš EFFENBERGER

Basic information

Original name

Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe

Authors

RIESE, Emma (752 Sweden), Madeleine LORÅS (578 Norway), Martin UKROP (703 Slovakia, guarantor, belonging to the institution) and Tomáš EFFENBERGER (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution)

Edition

Paderborn, Germany, Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE ’21), p. 547-553, 7 pp. 2021

Publisher

ACM

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Stať ve sborníku

Field of Study

10201 Computer sciences, information science, bioinformatics

Country of publisher

United States of America

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Publication form

electronic version available online

References:

ACM Digital library Supplementary materials

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14330/21:00121376

Organization unit

Faculty of Informatics

ISBN

978-1-4503-8214-4

ISSN

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304

Keywords in English

Teaching assistants; TAs; challenges

Abstract

V originále

Teaching assistants (TAs) are heavily used in computer science courses as a way to handle high enrollment and still being able to offer students individual tutoring and detailed assessments. TAs are themselves students who take on this additional role in parallel with their own studies at the same institution. Previous research has shown that being a TA can be challenging but has mainly been conducted on TAs from a single institution or within a single course. This paper offers a multi-institutional, multi-national perspective of challenges that TAs in computer science face. This has been done by conducting a thematic analysis of 180 reflective essays written by TAs from three institutions across Europe. The thematic analysis resulted in five main challenges: becoming a professional TA, student focused challenges, assessment, defining and using best practice, and threats to best practice. In addition, these challenges were all identified within the essays from all three institutions, indicating that the identified challenges are not particularly context-dependent. Based on these findings, we also outline implications for educators involved in TA training and coordinators of computer science courses with TAs.

Links

MUNI/A/1195/2021, interní kód MU

Name: Aplikovaný výzkum v oblastech vyhledávání, analýz a vizualizací rozsáhlých dat, zpracování přirozeného jazyka a aplikované umělé inteligence

Investor: Masaryk University

MUNI/A/1549/2020, interní kód MU

Name: Zapojení studentů Fakulty informatiky do mezinárodní vědecké komunity 21 (Acronym: SKOMU)

Investor: Masaryk University

Citovat

RIESE, Emma, Madeleine LORÅS, Martin UKROP and Tomáš EFFENBERGER. Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe. Online. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE ’21). Paderborn, Germany: ACM, 2021, p. 547-553. ISBN 978-1-4503-8214-4. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304.

@inproceedings{1758397,
   author = {Riese, Emma and Lorås, Madeleine and Ukrop, Martin and Effenberger, Tomáš},
   address = {Paderborn, Germany},
   booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE ’21)},
   doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304},
   keywords = {Teaching assistants; TAs; challenges},
   howpublished = {elektronická verze "online"},
   language = {eng},
   location = {Paderborn, Germany},
   isbn = {978-1-4503-8214-4},
   pages = {547-553},
   publisher = {ACM},
   title = {Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe},
   url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304},
   year = {2021}
}

TY  - JOUR
ID  - 1758397
AU  - Riese, Emma - Lorås, Madeleine - Ukrop, Martin - Effenberger, Tomáš
PY  - 2021
TI  - Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe
PB  - ACM
CY  - Paderborn, Germany
SN  - 9781450382144
KW  - Teaching assistants
KW  - TAs
KW  - challenges
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304
N2  - Teaching assistants (TAs) are heavily used in computer science courses as a way to handle high enrollment and still being able to offer students individual tutoring and detailed assessments. TAs are themselves students who take on this additional role in parallel with their own studies at the same institution. Previous research has shown that being a TA can be challenging but has mainly been conducted on TAs from a single institution or within a single course. This paper offers a multi-institutional, multi-national perspective of challenges that TAs in computer science face. This has been done by conducting a thematic analysis of 180 reflective essays written by TAs from three institutions across Europe. The thematic analysis resulted in five main challenges: becoming a professional TA, student focused challenges, assessment, defining and using best practice, and threats to best practice. In addition, these challenges were all identified within the essays from all three institutions, indicating that the identified challenges are not particularly context-dependent. Based on these findings, we also outline implications for educators involved in TA training and coordinators of computer science courses with TAs.
ER  -

RIESE, Emma, Madeleine LORÅS, Martin UKROP and Tomáš EFFENBERGER. Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe. Online. In \textit{Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE ’21)}. Paderborn, Germany: ACM, 2021, p.~547-553. ISBN~978-1-4503-8214-4. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456304.

Detailed Information on Publication Record