Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

On the contrary, customizing standards allow for a greater degree
of flexibility in teaching as they respect that different students
learn at different rates. This means standards must specify minimal
standards on the one hand and extended standards, in which
students can pursue their personal interests further, on the other.
In doing so, Reigeluth suggests establishing measurable, crossgradual
standard levels without relation to timetables, permitting
students to choose specifications freely within certain limits. Such
standards work against the sorting-out of students and promote
motivation building in reaching the respective standards [7].
Though educational standards affect everyone dealing with (public)
education ([7], p. 202), special attention should be given to
their implications on school curricula. “The experiences […] with
educational standards show that the implementation of this new
form of output-driven management is certain to prompt changes
in the work of schools, but the implications for the curricula are
not as clear-cut; rather, the options here are diverse and openended”,
state Klieme et al. [4] on p. 82.
3. RELATED WORK
The publication that was certainly the most influential for this
paper is the report Running on Empty: The Failure to Teach K–12
Computer Science in the Digital Age by Wilson et al. [12]. It
describes how computer science education is represented in the
curricula of the United States. Wilson et al. apply a methodology
that is very similar to ours, providing evidence for the implementation
of the 55 CSTA K-12 Standards in the version of 2006 [8]
in the mentioned curricula: “The researchers were very liberal in
the analysis; that is, they required minimal evidence to consider a
particular ACM/ CSTA standard as adopted. If the state standards
made any reference to the general idea detailed in the
ACM/CSTA standards, it was marked as adopted“ see [12], p. 34.
The report covers all 50 states of the USA and all 3 levels of the
CSTA standards from 2006.
Unfortunately, it provides a disillusioning result: It finds “that
roughly two-thirds of the entire country has few computer science
standards for secondary school education, K–8 computer science
standards are deeply confused, few states count computer science
as a core academic subject for graduation, and computer science
teacher certification is deeply flawed” [11].
The individual results vary largely from one state to another,
since there are states with hardly any standards implemented
while some conform to (almost) all of them. A neatly arranged,
interactive overview of the state-by-state results can be found at
[2] . The overall results are displayed in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Overall results of the CSTA survey [2] .
As our investigation refers to the revised version of the CSTA
standards from 2011 ([10], see below), which is different from the
2006 version in many respects (e.g. the overall number of stand-
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ards, the definition of the levels and the strands) it is , unfortunately,
not possible to compare our results with those of Wilson et
al. [12].
4. THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
Since the CSTA Standards were developed in the context of the
US educational system, whereas we refer to the Austrian system,
it seems appropriate to outline the major differences and similarities
of these two systems (see Fig. 2). The relevance of national
policies and educational systems to CSE was discussed closely by
a recent ITiCSE working group [3].
In the Austrian school system, children are required to attend
school for 9 years (respectively grades). This section of compulsory
schooling includes 4 years of primary school education, 4
years of lower secondary school education and one additional
year from the upper secondary education level. For the upper
secondary education (up to the final ‘Reifeprüfungen’ that qualify
for enrollment at universities) there are various types of schools
with various specifications and also different numbers of years
that can be chosen by the students after they have passed grade 8,
e.g.
- AHS (“Allgemeinbildende höhere Schule”, aiming to general
education),
- HAK (“Handelsakademie”), focused on trade and business,
- HLW (“Höhere Lehranstalt für wirtschaftliche Berufe”),
mainly educating for tourism and business,
- HTL (“Höhere Technische Lehranstalt”), mainly technically
and business-oriented),
- BMS (“Berufsbildende mittlere Schulen”) that lead to a
vocational qualification.
Besides these types, there are specific schools for Vocational
Education and Training, specializing in one specific profession.
Figure 2: School Systems of Austria and the USA
In the US school system, the number of years (respectively
grades) which students are required to attend school differs from
one state to the next. Elementary schooling includes nursery
schools and kindergartens on the lowest level, which are followed
by elementary schools. The primary education may end with