Signal Large-Scale Analysis of Discussions by CS Educators Across the Stack Exchange Network

Summary

Researchers Farhad Hossain, Natasha Grech and Omar Alam published a large-scale analysis of Stack Exchange posts centered on the Computer Science Educators community. The analysis covered a total of 79,854,463 posts, made up of 32,187,805 questions and 47,666,658 answers. Using topic modeling, the researchers identified discussion topics, manually labeled and organized them hierarchically, and then examined their distribution and complexity. The findings reveal evolving discussion patterns that span both technical and non-technical domains. Within the IT category, programming and software development were the most prominent topics, while mathematics, education and the humanities received substantial attention in the non-IT category. The results highlight the breadth of interests and expertise among CS educators and aim to inform future efforts to better support their professional and educational needs.