Author(s):
Dispositions are cultivable behaviors, such as adaptability, meticulousness, and self-directedness, that are desirable in the workplace. Multiple employer surveys and interviews have identified dispositions as being crucial for professional success. Dispositions are also an important part of the competency model used in Computing Curricula 2020. However, there has been little work investigating how dispositions are expressed in terms of behaviors. This multi-institutional project, funded under the NSF IUSE program (2216121, 2215166, 2215970, 2216031) is investigating student understanding of dispositions in terms of their behaviors while completing course projects. The goal is to study how professional dispositions can be understood, promoted, and eventually fostered across undergraduate computing programs without changing existing learning objectives or course structures. Since dispositions may be fostered by developing greater student awareness of behaviors associated with them, we need to understand how students perceive dispositions, and in particular, which behaviors they associate with each disposition. We have developed two types of materials, reflections and vignettes, in which students are asked to respond to prompts in the reflection/vignette after completing projects or assignments. Their responses are then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to determine how students understand each disposition. Current project results include reflection and vignette materials, a set of behavioral categories associated with each disposition based on a qualitative analysis of student responses, and lessons learned about how to foster and study dispositions.
