An Approach to Discover Students’ Conceptions in Online Computing Education: A Case Study of Students’ Understanding of Virtual Memory

This study presents a new approach for discovering conceptions among online computer science students. The research objectives were 1) to discover students’ conceptions of virtual memory, an important concept in operating systems, and 2) to provide a method for discovering students’ conceptions in the field of computer science. The study participants were students taking an undergraduate course on an operating system at an online university. Eleven students were enrolled in the course, and we selected all the participants who completed the course, seven students in total. We selected a qualitative case study as our methodology as we required a thorough and in-depth analysis of each student thought processes. Study data were obtained from questions on virtual memory that were included in two written evaluation tests at the beginning and end of the course. The questions assessed conceptual knowledge and meaningful learning of the concept of virtual memory. We discovered nine accepted conceptions and seven alternative conceptions related to virtual memory. We also inferred a mental model that could be the root cause of the discovered alternative conceptions. Our study has important implications for teaching and educational research in computer science. Regarding educational implications, this study makes recommendations for teaching virtual memory based on the results. Considering the implications for future research, our contributions are seven alternative conceptions of virtual memory that had not been previously identified, and a methodology for discovering conceptions that can be applied to other computing topics in both online and face-to-face environments.