What do we know about Computing Education in Africa? A Systematic Review of Computing Education Research Literature

TL;DR

This systematic review analyzes the state of computing education research in Africa, highlighting predominant topics, regional contributions, and gaps to guide future development in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of CER literature from Africa, identifying key research areas and underexplored regions within the continent.

Findings

South Africa dominates the research contributions.

Programming is the most studied topic, accounting for 43%.

Open research areas in CER for Africa are discussed.

Abstract

Noticeably, Africa is underrepresented in the computing education research (CER) community. However, there has been some effort from the researchers in the region to contribute to the growing need for computing for all. To understand the body of works that emerged from the global south region and their area of focus in computing education, we conducted a systematic review of the literature. This research investigates the prominent CER journals and conferences to discern the kind of research that has been published and how much contribution they have made to the growing field. Of the 68 selected studies, 45 papers were from South Africa. The prominent aspect of computing in the literature is programming, which accounts for 43%. We identified open areas for research in the context and discussed the implication of our findings for the development of CER in Africa.