Date Approved

4-27-1998

Embargo Period

8-10-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in Computer Science Education

Department

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math Education

College

College of Education

Advisor

Sooy, John

Subject(s)

Community colleges--New Jersey; Computer programming--Study and teaching (Higher)

Disciplines

Science and Mathematics Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the current trends in teaching object-oriented programming at the community college level. A questionnaire was developed and sent to all community colleges in the state of New Jersey to assess the extent of object-oriented material offered in computer science courses. Nine community colleges participated in the study.

All nine colleges reported offering at least one course containing some degree of object-oriented material. Of the eighty-five computer science courses offered, thirty of them (35%) contained some degree of object-oriented material. The degree of the object-oriented material ranged from 5% to 100%. Fourteen of the thirty courses (48%) contained at least 50% of objected-oriented material. Eight of the thirty courses (27%) were reported to have contained 100% object-oriented material. Colleges that reported the most object-oriented content had recently revised their computer science curriculum.

The conclusions from this study indicated that the majority of computer science courses in the community college do not currently contain object-oriented material and the migration to an object-oriented paradigm is occurring slowly. The study also revealed a correlation between the computer science faculty's experience in object-oriented programming and the degree of object-oriented material offered in the curriculum.

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