Current trends in computer science curriculum: a survey of four-year programs

Introduction Them is a widespread belief that the computer science curriculum, especially at the undergraduate level, seems to be lagging behind societal and technological needs. At the same time most undergraduate computer science programs have experienced enrollment declines. These are issues that computer science educators are discussing all over the nation. In order to cope with the rapid changes in the industry, several professional associations such as the Association of Computing Machinery and the Data Processing Management Association me. involved with upgrading end revising the current computer science end data processing curriculum. The results of these efforts have already been publicized through ACM’s proposed “Curriculum 86” and the DPMA’s “Model Curricula” (Myers, 1991). Integration of computers into every aspect of socio-econornic life is forcing educators to prepare graduates to meet the needs of a rapidly changing profession. Since the 70’s there have been substantial changes in the curricula. The core curricula has shifted from a sequence of programming and language oriented courses to courses derding extensively with fundamentals, efficiency of algorithms and ‘hands-on’ experimentation (Gries, 1991). At a recent Small College Computing Symposium where we had the privilege to present a paper on microeotnputing, the keynote speaker discussed several issues relating to the CS curriculum (McCracken, 1987). I%eulty raised questions, such as the following: * Are we still strongly programming oxiented without a required emphasis on “business”? * Do we need to incorporate mom fundamental concepts in the introductory level courses? * Do we need to institute more supervised lab interaction as found in the “Physics and Engineering model’’..as opposed to the “Math model” of independent discovery? * What degree of uniformity exists at different levels of the curriculum around the country? * What type of hardwere orientation is needed for a degree in computer science and where should it be incorporated in the curriculum? * What is the natmv of enrollment trends in computer science and infonttation systems programs around the country? We encounter similar questions at other more recent professional meetings and in the computer science literatme (Roth, 1991). However, very little empirical research has been done in this area. Mter an extensive search of the published literature, we were unable to find studies involving a large sample of colleges and universities offering degrees in computer science or information