percent of the u.s. population used computers at work

#Percent of the u.s. population used computers at work software

CS skills by elite and nonelite institutions: China, India, Russia, and the United States. To examine relative skill levels between countries and institutions in terms of effect sizes, we converted each student’s examination score into a z-score by subtracting the mean and dividing by the SD of the four-country sample.įig. Fourth, examination scores were scaled to be comparable across countries (see SI Appendix for more details). To minimize bias due to differences in language, we followed a rigorous multistage translation and translation review process (see SI Appendix for more details). Third, the examination was translated into the language of program instruction. Results are substantively the same whether or not we exclude these students. Second, to address concerns about student motivation in taking the examination, we conducted robustness checks in which we excluded a small minority of students (1.7%) that did not answer at least 75% of the items. In particular, students were given the option of receiving an individualized report of their examination performance. First, we provided the same incentives to students. We took several steps to ensure that examination-taking conditions were similar for all students. Content areas and their proportions are aligned with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) authoritative international standard, Computer Science Curricula 2013, 2008, and 2003 ( 20) ( SI Appendix, Table S3) and with the official curricula guidelines for domestic CS programs in China, India, and Russia ( SI Appendix, Table S4).

#Percent of the u.s. population used computers at work software

Examination content areas include discrete structures, programming, algorithms and complexity, systems, software engineering, information management, and “other” ( SI Appendix, Table S1). In fact, it uses pseudocode that is meant to be easily understood by CS students regardless of program or country.

The test does not assume knowledge of any particular type of software or programming language. It consists of 66 multiple-choice questions, some of which are grouped in sets and are based on materials such as diagrams, graphs, and program fragments. The examination assesses how well CS seniors master CS-related concepts, principles, and knowledge. Sampled seniors in the four countries all took a 2-h, computer-based, standardized CS examination from the “Major Field Test” suite of assessments designed by Educational Testing Service (ETS). The comparisons of elite universities favor India because students attending elite CS programs in India are approximately among the top 4% of CS undergraduates nationally, while students attending elite CS programs in China, Russia, and the United States are approximately among the top 19–26% of CS undergraduates in their respective countries. These high-profile elite programs teach different proportions of the total number of CS undergraduates in each country (see SI Appendix for more details).

In Russia, elite programs were identified as those in National Research Universities, “5–100” universities, and Federal universities. In India, elite programs were identified as those in India Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology, and other institutions that ranked in the top 100 of the National Institutional Ranking Framework rankings. In China, elite programs were identified as those in Project 985 or 211 universities.

The national samples covered elite and nonelite programs in each country. No large-scale study compares standardized measures of CS skills across countries and types of programs ( 12). Although international programming competitions, such as TopCoder and HackerRank, assess coding skills, they only reflect the ability of a small number of self-selected individuals and do not measure CS skills among a wider population of students ( 11). Ignoring skills, the 2018 US News and World Report: Best Global Universities for Computer Science claims that 45 CS programs in the United States, 34 in China, 3 in India, and 0 in Russia rank in the top 200 ( 10). International rankings, although widely regarded by the public and in the press as indicators of quality, largely focus on elite programs across countries and, more importantly, do not consider skills in the formulation of ranks ( 9). In particular, little is known about the major-specific competencies, knowledge, and skills (henceforth “skills”) of individuals from different countries and types of CS programs. Despite rapid increases in the quantity of CS students and graduates, however, little is known about their quality.