Open questions on student experiences and pedagogical practices in teaching undergraduate algorithm design

Determine undergraduate students’ experiences and difficulties in learning algorithm design and identify pedagogical practices that effectively and equitably teach algorithm design in upper-level algorithms courses.

Background

The paper is a systematic literature review of computing education research related to teaching algorithm design in undergraduate courses. The authors report that algorithm design instruction is critically underrepresented in the literature, with only 94 relevant papers identified across ACM venues prior to August 2023.

This scarcity leads to broad gaps in knowledge about how students experience and learn algorithm design and about effective and equitable pedagogical practices specific to algorithms coursework. The authors explicitly note that many foundational questions in these areas remain unresolved, motivating further empirical and rigorous investigations.