Computing Education research
Computing Education research
Aamna Rais Ahmed
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: Exploring Blended Project-Based Learning in Undergraduate Computing Education: A Community of Inquiry Approach
Aamna Rais Ahmed’s PhD project explores which conditions and processes help students reach the intended learning outcomes in blended project-based courses. Blended learning succeeds when its social and pedagogical aspects are supported together, yet little is known about how this works in project-based settings. The project consists of five interrelated studies in undergraduate project-based computing courses in Norway, Finland and Sweden, using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach unified by the Community of Inquiry framework.
A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis reveal a fragmented field, where blended learning is defined, implemented and evaluated in different ways and is mostly studied through students’ perspectives and quantitative measures. A qualitative study shows that students, teachers and industry mentors experience the same blended learning design in structurally different ways. The project therefore conceptualises blended learning as a negotiated arrangement rather than a mere combination of learning environments. Finally, a cross-national survey confirms that social interaction and teachers’ facilitation are important for students’ learning in project-based courses, especially in hybrid models of blended learning.
Abdullah Bahmani
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: A Framework for Multi-Campus Course Development: From Challenge Identification to Implementation in Higher Education
Abdullah Bahmani’s PhD project investigates how multi-campus course development can be effectively supported in higher education. Multi-campus arrangements can widen access to higher education, strengthen collaboration and support efficient use of institutional resources. However, they also create challenges for course development and delivery, for example related to technology, pedagogy, organisation, coordination and students’ learning experiences.
The project is grounded in the case of NTNU, which became a multi-campus institution in 2016 following a merger with three university colleges. It examines how courses are implemented across campuses, which factors influence the quality and effectiveness of this work, and how more structured support for multi-campus course development can be designed and evaluated.
Aparna Chirumamilla
Role in Excited: Postdoc
Aparna Chirumamilla’s research areas include computing education research, higher education, learning outcomes and structure, the development and assessment of non-technical skills, active learning and pedagogical approaches.
Her research focuses on developing comprehensive learning outcomes and a structured curriculum for software engineering education, integrating the assessment of essential non-technical skills such as communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. Her work involves analyzing existing curricular frameworks and assessment methodologies through systematic literature reviews and empirical studies, aiming to align educational objectives with industry needs. The goal of her research is to create a curriculum structure that combines technical and soft skills with the support of AI tools, enhancing the readiness of graduates for the workforce.
Attiqa Rehman
Role in Excited: Postdoc
Attiqa Rehman's research focuses on integrating sustainability competencies into Software Engineering (SE) curricula by redesigning Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) to align with sustainable development principles. Recognizing the critical role of technology in shaping modern society, her work emphasizes the need for future software engineers to develop not only technical expertise but also an understanding of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Her research explores how sustainability competencies—such as ethical responsibility, resource efficiency, and long-term impact assessment—can be systematically embedded within SE education.
By leveraging Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and pedagogical strategies, she aims to develop a curriculum framework that fosters sustainability awareness and decision-making skills among students. Additionally, her work examines the role of scheduling, load balancing, and fault tolerance in heterogeneous multiprocessor environments to optimize resource usage in sustainable computing. Through this interdisciplinary approach, her research seeks to bridge the gap between SE education and global sustainability goals, preparing graduates for responsible and future-ready engineering practices.
Bashira Jaradat
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: The Integration of Sustainability in Human-Computer Interaction Courses
The computing profession is essential for society to handle the sustainability challenges of the future. Higher computing education needs to follow suit and meaningfully integrate sustainability in their courses and study programs. One of the areas of computing where this is highly relevant, is HCI (human-computer interaction), where sustainability has increasingly been incorporated into professional practice. There is however a need for structured pedagogical strategies for integration of sustainability into HCI education.
Through the incorporation of sustainability analysis as part of project-based HCI courses at NTNU, this project applies an educational design research methodology to explore how to achieve sustainability integration HCI curricula, including large courses. Observed benefits to learning outcomes include expanding the scope of students’ design thinking and promoting students’ reflection and development of sustainablity competencies.
Gabrielle Hansen
Role in Excited: Researcher
Gabrielle Hansen’s research areas include formative assessment, with a particular focus on feedback in higher education, role changes, dialogue between students and between students and instructors, and reflection as an inner dialogue.
She also researches goal orientation as a motivational factor in higher education, mastery learning, the development, training and evaluation of interactive learning spaces, the use of response technology in teaching and assessment, and peer mentoring.
She is a researcher at Excited and part of SEED, Center for Science and Engineering Education Development, and research leader for TettPÅ, NTNU Toppundervisning.
Gunhild Marie Lundberg
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: Employability as Identity Formation: The Transition of Computing Graduates from Higher Education to Employment
Gunhild Marie Lundberg’s PhD project examines the transition of computing graduates from higher education to employment, a transition that can be challenging for many IT students. To explore the current employability and desired competencies of IT graduates, the project investigates the perspectives of IT students, alumni and employers through interviews and questionnaires.
The term employability was broadened from including skills, knowledge, and personal attributes to also include identity formation and awareness of employment possibilities.
Higher computing education needs to provide students with relevant information about their possibilities and what a career within computer science could be. This helps making students more career-ready and adds meaning to curricula by helping the students view their courses in a wider context.
Hege Annette Olstad
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: ePortfolios in Higher Education: Enabling Students to Recognise Acquired Competencies
Hege Annette Olstad’s PhD project explores how ePortfolios can help students in higher education recognise the competencies they have acquired.
E-portfolios are a way for students to collect and present content demonstrating their competencies and interests and may include results of work done in a study program, e.g., selected course assignments, and results/documentation of activities such as hobbies or volunteer work.
Developing an e-portfolio offers multiple benefits for students, including Increased awareness of one's own competencies, a boost of learning through reflection and getting a means for presenting one's competencies in a relevant and attractive way, e.g., to potential employers and collaboration partners.
E-portfolios may be developed on different technological platforms. In higher education, key requirements include smooth and flexible integration with learning management systems and the use of open platforms that ensure the e-portfolio remains available and can be further developed after the completion of formal education.
Izabella Jedel
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: Being Allowed to Play and Win the Game: When Reward-Based Game Elements Satisfy Students’ Needs for Autonomy and Competence
Izabella Jedel’s research areas include gamification, higher education, design research and need-supportive learning environments.
Reward-based game elements, such as points, badges, and leaderboards, have been increasingly implemented in higher educational teaching practices. These elements are, however, only likely to increase students’ intrinsic motivation when they satisfy students’ need for autonomy and competence. To support higher education teachers with implementing intrinsically motivating reward-based game elements, this dissertation therefore explored the following research question: When are reward-based game elements more likely to have a positive effect on higher education students’ autonomy and competence satisfaction?
To address the research question, a convergent mixed-methods design informed by prior empirical research and theoretical implications from Cognitive Evaluation Theory was applied. Three articles are included in the dissertation, including, a scoping review, an experimental vignette study, and a qualitative vignette study. The findings from the studies suggest that reward-based game elements are more likely to satisfy autonomy when they allow students to choose what activities to pursue and when to pursue them, competence when they provide visual representation of students’ perceived success, and autonomy and competence when they are achievable and connected to voluntary activities. Together the results highlight the importance of allowing students the flexibility in playing and winning the game that has been created by incorporating the reward-based game elements in higher educational learning contexts.
Madeleine Lorås Hollund
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: Understanding the Relation Between Study Behaviours and Educational Design: Research in Computing Education
Madeleine Lorås Hollund’s PhD project studies the relationship between students’ study behaviour and educational design in computing education.
Study behaviour is essential for computing students to become professionals with the skills and competencies to tackle future challenges.
Through interviews, surveys and questionnaires, the PhD project tracked students’ progression in study habits, skills, strategies and tactics thoughout their first year in higher education.
Results from the project highlight the importance of students’ varying backgrounds and previous experience for their study behavior. Computing students’ study behavior is heavily reliant on independent studying, often alone at home.
Results from the project have informed the development of first year courses, as well as study program and curriculum design.
Nipuna Weeratunge
Role in Excited: PhD Candidate
PhD Thesis: Game-Based Information Security Education: Perspective, Context, and Guidance
Nipuna Weeratunge’s PhD project studies game-based information security education. The project develops a unified taxonomy for classifying and analysing game-based approaches to information security education. The taxonomy is tested against 57 educational games and then applied in a scoping review of 230 studies to map trends, target audiences, design strategies and evaluation practices in the field. It gives the field, and game-based learning more generally, a shared and structured way to compare and analyse educational games.
The empirical work is conducted on TXG, an XSS (cross-site scripting) game featuring gameplay with multiple opposing roles, narrative-based simulation and structured in-game feedback. The project evaluates how these elements affect learning, motivation and engagement.
Somayeh Bayat Esfandani
Role in Excited: PhD candidate
PhD Thesis: Designing Peer Assessment Tools to Enhance the Learning Experience
Somayeh Bayat Esfandani’s research areas include technology-enhanced learning, computing education and human-computer interaction.
In computing education, peer feedback is often inaccurate or inconsistent due to students’ limited knowledge, low engagement, or lack of motivation. Peer assessment tools for computing education are few, and many are outdated or unsupported.
While AI enables easy feedback and assignments, there is a risk of plagiarism and lost learning. Thoughtful integration can turn these risks into opportunities. Integrating AI can improve feedback quality, strengthen the assessment process, and support student learning.
This PhD project applies design science research through a set of empirical studies exploring students’ perceptions of essential functionalities and qualities of peer code assessment tools, the impact of multi-peer feedback summary organization on review and implementation of feedback, whether AI in peer assessment supports or undermines self-regulated learning, an how constrained AI skills support peer code review.
