MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1974 - College Years IV

Dissertation

During the following Fall and Spring semesters at Northwest Missouri State University, I collected data from all students taking the introductory course in Computer Science. There were four sections of this class offered both semesters taught by various Computer Science teachers. Many students from across campus from various majors were required to take this class. The data collected from the students involved their academic record from high school and college, information about the psychological makeup, and the grade they got in this course. The idea was to see which factors effected their grade.

I had a graduate committee of 5 members that included the Chairman of the Computer Science department at Iowa State University. He was the same person that had brought me to Iowa State to begin with and one of the people on my Masters Committee. He was also the one that after my Masters oral was not sure I was worthy of a PhD. I guess I asked him to be on my PhD Committee to prove that I was worthy, if not in Computer Science, then maybe Computer Science Education. I had done the literature search on the subject and had written that part of my dissertation prior to the data collection and it was approved by my graduate committee.