With our interest to improve our education in computer science,
an understanding of how students learn about CS concepts, how
different concepts are understood, as well as the conditions for
learning, become important issues. A better understanding of our
students and their learning gives us a strong tool in our efforts to
develop teaching. There is an increasing awareness of the
usefulness of theoretically sound research approaches: it opens for
generalisations of results, it invites comparison between
researchers, methods and results, and at the same time it makes
the limits of the research visible. As examples on initiatives that
have lately been taken to promote a conscious use of relevant
research approaches, can be mentioned the bootstrapping project
[13], the special issue on import and export of Computer Science
Education (to appear), as well as papers offering overviews of the
current use of certain approaches ([4], [8]) and attempts to
verbalize models for a successful research process