Join us this Spring for our seminar series on discipline-based education research (DBER) in STEM! Each session will highlight current research on evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning, with practical ideas to strengthen the classroom experience across our departments. Faculty, lab instructors, lecturers, and staff from all STEM disciplines are welcome.

Topic: Student Archetypes in Computing: An Expectancy-Value Study
Speaker:  Victoria Macann, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar, 
Center for Computing Education

The Ohio State University 

Computing shapes how we live, work, and learn. Yet a gap appears to remain in university computing education programs, particularly for non-computer science students. Too often, these courses are designed with a narrow conception of who a typical learner is and primarily use a ‘one-size fits all’ approach for curriculum design, overlooking the varied motivations, confidence levels, and prior experiences that shape students’ learning engagement. Drawing on Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT), Dr. Macann’s research explores how students’ expectancies of success, perceived value (intrinsic, attainment, and utility), and perceived costs shape non-CS students' engagement with interdisciplinary computing courses. In this seminar, she will present how identifying EVT-based student archetypes aims to help us better understand non-computing majors and translate motivational insights into actionable curriculum design.

About our speaker: Dr. Victoria Macann's research focuses on computing education and the design of curricula that attract and equip learners with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in an evolving digital world. As a Fulbright Graduate Award recipient in 2022 and then as a research scientist at Michigan State University in 2023, Victoria investigated how to bring computational thinking into education to support teacher and student learning outcomes. Victoria holds a doctoral degree in Digital Education from Massey University, New Zealand. To find out more about her work: https://cce.osu.edu/