Development of the Critical Reflection and Agency in Computing Index

Abstract

As computing's societal impact grows, so does the need for computing students to recognize and address the ethical and sociotechnical implications of their work. While there are efforts to integrate ethics into computing curricula, we lack a standardized tool to measure those efforts, specifically, students' attitudes towards ethical reflection and their ability to effect change. This paper introduces the novel framework of Critically Conscious Computing and reports on the development and content validation of the Critical Reflection and Agency in Computing Index, a novel instrument designed to assess undergraduate computing students' attitudes towards practicing critically conscious computing. The resulting index is a theoretically grounded, expert-reviewed tool to support research and practice in computing ethics education. This enables researchers and educators to gain insights into students' perspectives, inform the design of targeted ethics interventions, and measure the effectiveness of computing ethics education initiatives.

Accepted to the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25)

References in corpus (4)

• The Development and Validation of the Technology-Supported Reflection Inventory
• Incorporating Ethics in Computing Courses: Perspectives from Educators
• Conceptualizing Approaches to Critical Computing Education: Inquiry, Design and Reimagination
• "This Applies to the RealWorld": Student Perspectives on Integrating Ethics into a Computer Science Assignment

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Validation of the Critical Reflection and Agency in Computing Index: Do Computing Ethics Courses Make a Difference?