Competing in Computing
Fredrik Manne · 1999
This paper describes a study performed in conjunction with organizing a local qualification contest for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. This is an annual contest where teams of students compete against each other in writing computer programs. The objective of the study was to see if the effort that was put into organizing this event gave sufficient results that it warrants a continued participation. It was also a chance to evaluate how a competition can be used as a learning environment. The data for the study was gathered from having the participating students fill in a questionnaire after the competition. 1 Introduction The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) [1] is an interest group for professionals in computer science which for the last 24 years has arranged "The Annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest" (ACM-ICPC) [2]. This is a competition where teams of students compete against each other in writing computer programs. In thi...