We propose to support foundational work towards theory building in computing education research (CER) by generating knowledge through organizing coordinated multi-site equity-enabling replication studies on open CER questions. We will gather a Research Design Team to create a replication package to address a research goal and question(s) of interest to the community. Members of the community will be invited to run the replications in their classrooms, contributing to the overall investigation into the topic. We will summarize results across replications to answer the common research question(s) and lay the foundation for computing-specific educational theory.

In this research, we plan to characterize the help resources available to students in Computer Science (CS) courses and analyze the order and frequency of use by the students. We will also study why students choose specific help patterns and what help they perceive to be effective for their learning. Our goals are to explicitly teach students about the help resource landscape, guide them to identify CS topics where they may need help and to empower them to be more effective in traversing the complex landscape of help resources.

Educating the next generation of cybersecurity professionals is a critical need for the State of North Carolina and the United States. We are utilizing our expertise in cybersecurity research to prepare undergraduate and Masters computer science students at NC State for cybersecurity jobs. Scholarship for Service (SFS) will provide students from North Carolina and the United States, especially from underrepresented groups, the opportunity to receive a high quality cybersecurity focused degree. SFS students will be part of a larger cohort of cybersecurity students who will participate in supplemental activities, events, and conferences as part of their educational experience.

The expansion of K-12 Computing Education Research (CER) is quickly following the expansion of computing education in primary and secondary schools, yet much remains to be learned about the effectiveness of the implementation and the quality of evidence produced by research. While the integration of computing education into K-12 in the United States is still in its infancy, so is the research necessary for identifying promising practices for educational outcomes across a variety of populations, including those historically underserved and marginalized by education. The proposal seeks to 1) summarize and frame prior equitable K-12 CS education research against the areas of capacity, access, participation, and experience as defined by the CAPE framework; 2) develop publicly-available recommendations and resources along the CAPE framework for expanding coverage of equitable K-12 computing education research; and 3) design and pilot workshops to train K-12 education research in methods and practice to support robust evidence-based research results that can inform practice.

The NC State Computer Science Department had doubled undergraduate enrollments and the percentage of women in our program between 2010 and 2020. With this growth, we are challenged with understanding persistence and retention of our students, particularly women. The goal of the diagnostic grant program is to collect and analyze demographic data to better understand where our students are coming from, and if they leave the program, where do they go. The results of the data analysis will provide insights into how we can better support our students to increase persistence, retention, and success.

The Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) is a group-based, dual-mentored research structure designed to provide a supportive and inclusive research experience using equity-based practices to grow the confidence and foundational skills of early-career students, particularly African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and women. For this NSF subaward from UC San Diego, we plan to add ERSP to our course catalog and start implementing it in Fall 2021. As part of their full-year apprenticeship, teams of students will learn about graduate school, be matched to research mentors, observe the mentor's lab, participate in the ERSP course, and propose an independent research project.

Demand for computing is increasing across pathways; majors, minors, and computing in discipline. Peer teachers are critically needed to support student learning outcomes. This proposal builds on an existing NIC in peer teaching to expand support across computing pathways. We will assess the impact of peer teaching, particularly related to support with debugging, on 1) departmental and non-major course culture, student learning and support and 2) broadening participation of underrepresented groups in computing courses and as peer teachers. We will share our results and build a larger community through a 2nd offering of the Peer Teaching Summit.

Modern computer science classrooms support student learning by integrating a large number of educational tools and platforms from forums to intelligent tutors and automated tests. This proliferation of tools can overwhelm students who have difficulty navigating across platforms or connecting the information between platforms. We propose to develop an open platform for student and instructor guidance that supports data integration and analysis. The system will be designed to synthesize student interaction data from a rich set of educational tools. The integrated data and will provide the basis for automated analysis of students' work and work habits allowing for automated and instructor-driven interventions to support student learning. Additionally, the integrated system will provide pedagogical guidance on how students can best use classroom learning tools not individually, but in concert.

Computing education is a growing research area and supporting educators in designing, delivering, and disseminating high quality research is important for maturing the field. The DEERS project supports educator training in computing education research through the Designing Empirical Education Research Studies workshop and follow on mentoring. Additionally, the project is evaluating the level of empirical reporting in computing education literature and supporting exemplar computing education research by the investigators. DEERS workshops have contributed to training over 60 educators in computing education research and dissemination of high-quality research results.

The computer science education (CSEd) research community consists of a large group of passionate CS educators who often contribute to other disciplines of CS research. There has been a trend in other disciplines toward more rigorous and empirical evaluation of various hypotheses. However, many of the practices that we apply to demonstrate rigor in our discipline research are ignored or actively avoided when performing research in CSEd. This suggests that CSEd is ����������������theory scarce��������������� because most publications are not research and do not provide the evidence or replication required for meta-analysis and theory building . An increase in empiricism in CSEd research will move the field from ����������������scholarly teaching��������������� to the ����������������scholarship of teaching and learning��������������� (SoTL) providing the foundation for meta-analysis and the generation of theories about teaching and learning in computer science. We propose the creation of training workshops and tutorials to educate the educators about appropriate research design and evaluation of educational interventions. The creation of laboratory packages, ����������������research-in-a-box,��������������� will support sound evaluation and replication leading to meta-analysis and theory building in the CSEd community.