phd-interview/slides.tex
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\documentclass[aspectratio=169]{beamer}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\newcommand\todo[1]{\textcolor{red}{#1}}
% section frame
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\begin{frame}
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pdftitle={Overleaf Example},
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% Referencing
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\title{PhD Interview Presentation}
%\subtitle{aa}
%\date{Week 1}
\author{Warwick New}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Points to cover}
{\tiny
\begin{itemize}
\item 1. Why have you chosen to undertake doctoral research at Falmouth
University, and how does its research environment align with your
aspirations?
\item 2. What is the central question, problem, or hypothesis driving your
research, and how does it connect to Falmouths research strengths?
\item 3. What do you hope to uncover, challenge, or contribute through your
research?
\item 4. Which prior work whether theoretical, creative, or methodological
-- do you consider significant in shaping your research area?
\item 5. What key challenges do you anticipate in your research, and how do
you plan to address them?
\item 6. What previous work in your chosen or related field are you
particularly proud of, and how does it inform your research direction?
\item 7. What research methods do you propose to use (e.g. qualitative,
quantitative, mixed methods), and why are they suited to your project?
\item 8. What ethical considerations are relevant to your research,
particularly in relation to Falmouths emphasis on creative and critical
inquiry?
\item 9. Which disciplinary field(s) does your research engage with, and how
will your project contribute to existing knowledge within these areas?
\item 10. What technical skills (e.g. research methods, software, languages)
will you need to develop to support your research?
\item 11. If your project is practice-based, how does your creative or
professional practice inform and shape your enquiry?
\end{itemize}
}
\end{frame}
\section{What is the problem I'm trying to solve?}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What is the problem space?}
Students self perceptions about their programming ability largely affects
several factors in deciding to continue learning to program \cite{lewis2011}.
\newline
A particular point of frustration for novice programmers is attempting to
debug without thinking of the problem critically \cite[p.~23]{vickers2008}.
\newline
Recent literature has identified this as a problem space that generative AI
can attempt to help resolve. Renzella et al's work \cite{renzella2025}
demonstrates that there are aspects of learning that traditionally could only
be fulfilled by an instructor outside highly controlled learning
environments (like Gidget \cite{Lee2014}) that can be partially automated with
generative AI. And therefore can be made more available to students outside
time tabled sessions.
%in this case reducing the cognitive load \cite{sweller1988} of reading and understanding compiler messages by providing more human-readable descriptions of compiler errors.
\end{frame}
%\begin{frame}
% \frametitle{What is the gap I've identified}
% \todo{Cite and Professionalise this slide}
% \begin{itemize}
% \item Much research into debugging education for students more recently is
% focused on generative AI models and some new paradigms that come from that
% \todo{\cite{}}. This is to be expected with a whole new paradigm in
% education in this area.
% \item Before this focus however much research into the area of first stage
% computer science debbugging was focused on teaching debugging in closed
% controlled environments \todo{\cite{}}, This allowed for experimentation
% with making fixing coding problems more accessible, in terms of compiler
% error messages and scaffolding of the processes a student might take when
% they ran into a problem.
% \item I think that we can take these classical educational tools and use
% them combined with more recent generative AI computing education
% technologies to.
% \begin{enumerate}
% \item Remove the need for locked down highly controlled debugging
% environments.
% \item Improve the human element to debugging messages and tools with how
% much more human the AI can appear to be to students.
% \end{enumerate}
% \end{itemize}
%\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What is the Gap}
Use of generative AI to learn how to debug isn't new in research. But there
are some lessons learned from educational programming interventions applied in
tools that could be made more accessible outside of sessions and scaled to a
wider range of programming environments that we could apply, which has the
potential to improve self-efficacy within the student base. Including:
\begin{itemize}
\item Personification of programming tools as fallible and encouraging, as
presented by Lee et al \cite{Lee2011}, is shown to have a positive impact
on learning motivation and success.
\item Scaffolding what steps to take when you encounter a bug and
encouraging the student to think through them one step at a time, improves
self-efficacy and productivity as demonstrated in Pechorina et al's work
on Metacodenition \cite{Pechorina2023}.
\end{itemize}
Both of these works are restriceted to very specific environments limiting
their application on real world coding projects.
\end{frame}
%\begin{frame}
% \frametitle{The fields this gap interacts with}
% \begin{itemize}
% \item Computer science education
% \begin{itemize}
% \item Specifically focusing on first stage debugging.
% \end{itemize}
% \item Psychology
% \begin{itemize}
% \item Student Self-efficacy. \todo{cite}
% \item Students engagement. (Time Spent working on programming tasks)
% \todo{Define engagement}
% \end{itemize}
% \item Artificial Intelligence
% \begin{itemize}
% \item Scaffolding of Generative AI queries to fit a more traditionally
% productive learning environment in a wide range of situations.
% \item Encourage personal reflection and action when attempting to solve
% an issue.
% \end{itemize}
% \end{itemize}
%\end{frame}
\section{How I plan to address this space}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{How am I addressing the gap}
\todo{Talk about Gidget and offer scaffolding tools, then talk about how we
can create a tool to aid intervention}
I plan to create an intervention wherein I give students access to an AI tool
that takes elements from previous interventions that align with the principles
of improving self-efficacy in students, and combine it with more recent
breakthroughs in LLM based technologies to allow the intervention to be used
in a wider variety of programming environments and contexts.
I then plan to evaluate its impact on self-efficacy and potentially other
outcomes. \todo{Figure out what those outcomes are.}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{The Intervention}
\todo{Talk about methodology and the type of intervention that's taking place.
Why this method over other methods etc}
This artefact attempts to replicate the channels of self-efficacy improvement
that one on one support from an instructor, by targeting these factors in
Bandura's theory \todo{cite}:
\begin{itemize}
\item Mastery experiences (Experiencing more success in coding tasks).
\item Verbal encouragement.
\item Guided support.
\end{itemize}
\todo{Check the previous itemisation isn't mistaken}
The agent will use techniques such as personification \todo{cite gidget} and
an AI models ability to translate errors into more accessible descriptions
replicate an instructors ability to help a student understand knowledge they
may be missing in terms of the language of a compiler. The model will also
focus on guiding the student towards the solution in a structured manner such
as in \todo{cite structured debugging intervention paper}.
The goal with this artefact is to as closely as possible replicate the
experience and self-efficacy improvements that come with 1 on 1 tuition
\todo{cite}, so that these benefits can be scaled up. And help seeking
behaviours be made more available.
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Key influences in this field and area of research.}
\todo{Talk about the psychology and mikes previous paper bandura. gidget and
some scaffolding intervention if it's not all covered in the previous slide}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What is the variable. What does better look like}
\todo{what research methods will analyse this}
\todo{Students drop out less, produce higher quality code? What do other
interventionist studies look at?}
\todo{There are a few outcomes we can try to measure. We can use likart style
surveys and attempt pre-post intervention comparisons}
The study plans to measure changes in the students self-efficacy and their
self perception of their coding ability before and after intervention.
The study falls into an educational intervention style methodology for which
the best style of study in regard to bias is usually random
assignment \todo{cite research methods and methodologies in education}.
However, due to the ethical concerns of depriving only part of a cohort of a
tool that may be beneficial to them without an alternative equally powerful
tool as an alternative, a longitudinal year of entry based cohort study could
be used as an alternative, albeit with a higher potential for bias.\todo{cite
research methods and methodologies in education different page}
\end{frame}
\section{Challenges and ethical considerations}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Key challenges in the study}
\todo{Talk about the time to develop the software and more about the study
structure and issues with pedagogical research in general}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{main ethical concerns}
\begin{itemize}
\item \todo{This research should be limited to adults as gen ai and children = bad.}
\item \todo{Making the AI friendlier and having it say something outside my control}
\item \todo{Mention potential for bias in the current data collection}
\todo{Ethical AI models should be a requirement}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Key challenges in this area}
\begin{itemize}
\item \todo{First stage programming generally has a high drop out rate because
overcoming programming problems can be distressing without a degree of
self-efficacy.}
\item \todo{Having a guide help students learn through the process one on one
is a time intensive process for staff and fairly cost inefficient in terms
of time spent with educators.}
\item \todo{This tool is also an attempt to scale the amount of human support
a student can receive, outside the classroom}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\section{Me, My Skills, And why I want to study at Falmouth University}
% 1 4 9? 10?
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Who am I?: Relevant Job Experience}
\begin{itemize}
\item Senior Technician at Falmouth Universities Games Academy, specialising
in Computing.
\begin{itemize}
\item Previously I was an Associate Lecturer and an e-Learning Developer
\end{itemize}
\item I have worked on streaming interactive 3D Architectural Visualisation
experiences with \href{https://www.amutri.com/}{Amutri Ltd}
\cite{AmutriLtd2025}. \item And I have worked with live audio streaming for
podcasts in a former startup called Ramble that attempted to live stream
podcasts and call in radio shows.
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Who am I?: Relevant Research}
I have been contributed to the following papers with academic staff from
Falmouth University previously:
\begin{itemize}
\item Student Perspectives on the Purpose of Peer Evaluation During Group
Game Development Projects \cite{Mitchell2021}
\item An Exploratory Analysis of Student Experiences with Peer Evaluation in
Group Game Development Projects \cite{Mitchell2022}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Why I want to study here}
\begin{itemize}
\item I already work here delivering content to the students and feel that
the computing departments research goals and my work already align really
well.
\item The research area I'm applying to perform research within is the work
I am already performing at this institution.
\item It will be a good reason to continue to develop new software keeping
up with novel techniques which can also influence my teaching.
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}[allowframebreaks]
\frametitle{References}
{\tiny
\bibliography{references.bib}
}
\end{frame}
\end{document}