Using theory to inform capacity-building: Bootstrapping communities of practice in computer science education research

In this paper, we describe our efforts in the deliberate creation of a

community of practice of researchers in computer science education

(CSEd). We understand community of practice in the sense in

which Wenger describes it, whereby the community is characterized

by mutual engagement in a joint enterprise that gives rise to a

shared repertoire of knowledge, artefacts, and practices.

We first identify CSEd as a research field in which no shared

paradigm exists, and then we describe the Bootstrapping project,

its metaphor, structure, rationale, and delivery, as designed to create

a community of practice of CSEd researchers. Features of

other projects are also outlined that have similar aims of capacity

building in disciplinary-specific pedagogic enquiry. A theoretically

derived framework for evaluating the success of endeavours of

this type is then presented, and we report the results from an

empirical study. We conclude with four open questions for our

project and others like it: Where is the locus of a community of

practice? Who are the core members? Do capacity-building models

transfer to other disciplines? Can our theoretically motivated

measures of success apply to other projects of the same nature?