Understanding the teaching context of first-year ICT education in Australia

This paper reports on an investigation of the teaching context of first-year Information and Communications Technology (ICT) courses at Australian universities and the influences of this on students' learning experiences. This is part of a larger project which aimed to identify and disseminate good practices in ICT teaching at Australian universities with a specific focus on the first year experience. We conducted a systematic review of the research literature from the previous five years and an online search of information on existing courses and content, and interviewed 30 academics concerned with design and delivery of the first-year learning experience in 25 Australian universities. From our study of teaching context we gained a comprehensive view of the current curricula, teaching models and teaching spaces and were able to outline the unique challenges that our first-year ICT students face and to recommend areas to further investigation.