This is a catch-all in which I put all the odds and ends related to research.
I think I am probably done now (October 2026)!
Many papers are available at ACM digital library
2025-2026
Leveraging Pseudocode for behaviour in Object-Oriented Design: A phenomenographic investigation
Carol Zander, Lynda Thomas, Jan Erik Mostrum , and Anna Eckerdal. 2026. In Proceedings of Frontiers In Education (FIE) Conference, 2026.
2023-2024
Pseudocode: scaffolding student object-oriented software design
Carol Zander, Lynda Thomas, Jan Erik Mostrum , and Anna Eckerdal. 2023.
In Proceedings of Koli Calling, 2023
2019-2020 Not a good year in any sense!
Copying Can Be Good: How Students View Imitation as a Tool in Learning to Program
Carol Zander, Lynda Thomas, Jan Erik Mostrum , and Anna Eckerdal. 2020.
In Proceedings of Frontiers In Education (FIE) Conference, 2020.
2018-2019
Copying Can Be Good: How Instructors Use Imitation in Teaching Programming
Carol Zander, Anna Eckerdal, Robert McCartney, Jan Erik Mostrum, Kate Sanders, and Lynda Thomas. 2019.
In Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference
on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Aberdeen 2019).
ITiCSE '19. ACM, New York, NY
2016-2017 In theory I have retired – but actually I am still interested in CS Education research and have 2 papers that came out this year.
Student software designs at the undergraduate midpoint
Lynda Thomas, Carol Zander, Chris Loftus and Anna Eckerdal. 2017.
In Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference
on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Bologna 2017).
ITiCSE '17. ACM, New York, NY
In the liminal space: Software Design as a Threshold Skill.
Lynda
Thomas, Jonas Boustedt, Anna Eckerdal, Robert McCartney, Jan Eric
Mostrum, and Carol Zander. 2017. PESTLHE,
Practice and Evidence
of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education,
Special Issue: Threshold Concepts and Conceptual Difficulty. Vol 12,
No. 1, 2017, ISSN 1750-8428, 12 pages.
2015-2016
Why Computing Students Learn on Their Own: Motivation for Self-Directed Learning of Computing.
Robert McCartney, Jonas Boustedt, Anna Eckerdal, Kate Sanders, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander. 2016. Trans. Comput. Educ. 16, 1, Article 2 (January 2016), 18 pages.
Presentation at Hopper Colloquium - May 25th 2016. Can students design software: CS specific pedagogical research
2014-2015
Graduating students' designs: through a phenomenographic lens
Thomas, L., Eckerdal, A., McCartney, R., Mostrum, J., Sanders, K. & Zander, C. 2014 Proceedings of the tenth annual conference on International computing education research.
In Proceedings of the tenth annual conference on International computing education research (ICER '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 91-98.
2013-2014
A fresh look at novice programmers' performance and their teachers' expectations
Utting, I., Tew, A. E., McCracken, M., Thomas, L. A., Bouvier, D., Frye, R., Paterson, J., Caspersen, M., Kolikant, Y. B-D., Sorva, J. & Wilusz, T. 2013.
Proceedings of the ITiCSE working group reports conference on Innovation and Technology in computer science education ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15-32.
2012-2013
Self-directed learning: stories from industry
Carol Zander, Jonas Boustedt, Anna Eckerdal, Robert McCartney, Kate Sanders, Jan Erik Moström, and Lynda Thomas. 2012.
In Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 111-117.
Threshold concepts and threshold skills in computing
Kate Sanders, Jonas Boustedt, Anna Eckerdal, Robert McCartney, Jan Erik Moström, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander. 2012.
In Proceedings of the ninth annual international conference on International computing education research (ICER '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 23-30.
Lynda Thomas. 2013a. Self-directed learning in computing, and the path to employment, presentation at the HEA - STEM conference, April 2013.
Lynda Thomas. 2013b. How students learn computing, presentation to HEA - Invited presentation at the HEA CS New to Teaching conference, March 2013
2011-2012
Threshold Concepts: from personal practice to communities of practice
Lynda Thomas, Boustedt, Jonas; Eckerdal, Anna; McCartney, Robert; Mostrom, Jan Erik; Sanders, Kate; Zander, Carol. 2012.
Proceedings of the National Academy’s Sixth Annual Conference and the Fourth Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference ISBN number is 978-1-906642-58-7
Students' perceptions of the differences between formal and informal learning
Boustedt, J., Anna Eckerdal, Robert McCartney, Kate Sanders, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander. 2011.
In Proceedings of the seventh international workshop on Computing education research (ICER '11).
ACM, New York, NY, USA, 61-68.
2010-2011 The 'Sweden Group' has switched focus from Threshold concepts to Informal Learning. Although there are a couple of other themes showing up here too.
An evaluation of object oriented example programs in introductory programming textbooks
Jürgen Börstler, Mark S. Hall, Marie Nordström, James H. Paterson, Kate Sanders, Carsten Schulte, and Lynda Thomas. 2010.
SIGCSE Bull. 41, 4 (January 2010), 126-143.
Can graduating students design: revisited
Chris Loftus, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander. 2011.
In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (SIGCSE '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 105-110.
Computing students learning computing informally
Robert McCartney, Anna Eckerdal, Jan Erik Mostrom, Kate Sanders, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander. 2010.
In Proceedings of the 10th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 43-48.
2009-2010
Threshold Concepts in Computer Science: An Ongoing Empirical Investigation
Thomas, Lynda; Boustedt, Jonas; Eckerdal, Anna; McCartney, Robert; Mostrom, Jan Erik; Sanders, Kate; Zander, Carol. 2010.
In Meyer, Jan H.F., Land, Ray and Baillie, Caroline (eds.) Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning. Sense Publishing.
Harnessing surprise: tales from students' transformational biographies
Lynda Thomas, Carol Zander, and Anna Eckerdal. 2010.
In Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (SIGCSE '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 300-304.
Student transformations: are they computer scientists yet?
Zander, C., Boustedt, J., McCartney, R., Moström, J. E., Sanders, K., and Thomas, L. 2009.
In Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Computing Education Research Workshop (Berkeley, CA, USA, August 10 - 11, 2009).
ICER '09. ACM, New York, NY, 129-140.
And a Journal article:
Liminal spaces and learning computing
Robert McCartney, Jonas Boustedt, Anna Eckerdal, Jan Erik Mostrom, Kate Sanders, Lynda Thomas, and Carol Zander.
European Journal of Engineering Education. Volume 34, Issue 4, 2009
2008-2009 This has been a pretty productive year.
As usual, for a CS ED Researcher, the year is marked by the various conferences. SIGCSE in February, ITiCSE in June and ICER in September.
I attended ITiCSE in Paris this year and was involved with papers for ITiCSE and ICER.
Learning styles: novices decide
Zander, C., Thomas, L., Simon, B., Murphy, L., McCauley, R., Hanks, B., and Fitzgerald, S. 2009.
In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Paris, France, July 06 - 09, 2009).
ITiCSE '09. ACM, New York, NY, 223-227.
Computer science student transformations: changes and causes
Moström, J. E., Boustedt, J., Eckerdal, A., McCartney, R., Sanders, K., Thomas, L., and Zander, C. 2009.
In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
(Paris, France, July 06 - 09, 2009). ITiCSE '09. ACM, New York, NY, 181-185.
Saying isn't necessarily believing: influencing self-theories in computing
Simon, B., Hanks, B., Murphy, L., Fitzgerald, S., McCauley, R., Thomas, L., and Zander, C. 2008.
In Proceeding of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research (Sydney, Australia, September 06 - 07, 2008). ICER '08. ACM, New York, NY, 173-184.
Concrete examples of abstraction as manifested in students' transformative experiences
Moström, J. E., Boustedt, J., Eckerdal, A., McCartney, R., Sanders, K., Thomas, L., and Zander, C. 2008.
In Proceeding of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research
(Sydney, Australia, September 06 - 07, 2008). ICER '08. ACM, New York, NY, 125-136.
Also a couple of Journal papers:
Debugging: a review of the literature from an educational perspective
Renee McCauley, Sue Fitzgerald, Gary Lewandowski, Laurie Murphy, Beth Simon, Lynda Thomas, Carol Zander
Computer Science Education, Volume 18, Issue 2 June 2008 , pages 67 - 92
Debugging: finding, fixing and flailing, a multi-institutional study of novice debuggers
Sue Fitzgerald, Gary Lewandowski, Renee McCauley, Laurie Murphy, Beth Simon, Lynda Thomas, Carol Zander
Computer Science Education, Volume 18, Issue 2 June 2008 , pages 93 - 116
2007-2008
This year has been so busy I am updating this once it is over!
I was involved in 2 papers (the phicer and sweden papers below) at ICER in September 07 in Atlanta - unfortunately couldn't attend.
In March I attended SIGCSE in Portland. What a great city! The Sweden group had a paper on concepts maps and the DEBUG group on strategies.
I also attended ITiCSE in Madrid this year. The first year I didn't attend a working group. I missed that experience. Presented a paper on mindsets written with Laurie Murphy.
This summer I am working on learning styles, Kate's OO checklist, and more on Threshold concepts.
2006-2007
I did a lot of travelling at the beginning and end of the year.
At the start of the year I went to Canterbury for Phicer06 (The phenomenography workshop). Great fun! Paivi Kinnunen, Robert McCartney, Laurie Murphy and I wrote up our phicer work from this and it will be presented at ICER in September 07.
At the end of the year, went to ITiCSE07 in Dundee where Kate Sanders presented the paper that we wrote last summer, and
I also participated in a working group on debugging.
I have joined the 'Sweden group' in addition to the 'Debugging group', as a result of which I helped write another sweden paper on student transformation that will be presented at ICER.
Spent 5 days visiting Anna Eckerdal in Uppsala in June with these folk. Had a great time and we are set to write something up for SIGCSE.
2005-2006
Sue Fitzgerald, Beth Simon and I continued the tracing work with a paper that we presented at ICER the first conference on CS Ed research. This was held in Seattle in October 2005 and was a great conference.
Mark and I have been working on turning Benjy Thomasson's thesis into papers.
The first of these has been sent to ITiCSE for June 2006 in Bologna.
I'm participating in a reading group in which we are looking at student debugging behaviour.
2004-2005
Working more on models for tracing code and how students do multiple choice questions of this type. Several of the Bootstrapping people organised a working group on this at ITiCSE 2004. There is now a paper about this work in SIGCSE bulletin.
2003-2004
This past summer was the final Bootstrapping Year. It has been an amazing experience. We completed a paper that I am sure will soon be appearing someplace.
At Bootstrapping I got lots of encouragement and advice for work on object diagrams. This resulted in paper that has been accepted for SIGCSE 2004
Also presented a variation on this to Diagrams 2004
Mark Ratcliffe and I have now written a summary paper of various experiments and their impact on Vortex. I presented this at the PPIG workshop in Ireland.
Gave an invited talk on lots of these issues at Marquette University in August.
2002-2003
Finally wrote up the pair-programming work and submitted to SIGCSE where it was accepted.
Mark and his band of merry students have been real busy this summer. As a result we have a few other papers in the works.
I presented a paper at the Engineering Education 2003 conference on the Aberdyfi and Gregynog experiences.
Was invited up to Napier University to talk about our research
I'm thinking a lot about interaction diagrams. This has resulted in research proposal to be discussed at Bootstrapping 2003.
2001-2002
I'm on the program committee for CSEET 2002 and also leading a workshop on how people present Software Engineering concepts to first years students. In addition Mark is presenting a paper on the Aberdyfi/Gregynog experience.
Right after CSEET is SIGCSE and we have a had a paper accepted for that too on Learning Styles and performance in the first year.
I have been accepted to an NSF funded workshop this summer on Bootstrapping Computer Science Research. This is really exciting!
2000-2001
Attended DIAGRAMS 2000. This was fantastic - I learnt a lot - still trying to figure out what to do with it.
Mark Ratcliffe, John Woodbury and I have had a paper accepted for CSEET 2001 about the work on objective testing and modelling.
In June I went to Canterbury to ITICSE where I participated in a working group on assessment of first year programming skills. Here is a rough draft. This paper has ended up being pretty influential and is often referred to as the 'McCracken group report'.