Computer Science Skills Across China, India, Russia, and the United States

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Abstract

We assess and compare computer science skills among final-year computer science undergraduates (seniors) in four major economic and political powers that produce approximately half of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the world. We find that seniors in the United States substantially outperform seniors in China, India, and Russia by 0.76–0.88 SDs and score comparably with seniors in elite institutions in these countries. Seniors in elite institutions in the United States further outperform seniors in elite institutions in China, India, and Russia by ∼0.85 SDs. The skills advantage of the United States is not because it has a large proportion of high-scoring international students. Finally, males score consistently but only moderately higher (0.16–0.41 SDs) than females within all four countries.

Citation

P. Loyalka, O. L. Liu, G. Li, I. Chirikov, E. Kardanova,L. Gu, G. Ling, N. Yu, F. Guo, L. Ma, S. Hu, A. S. Johnson, A. Bhuradia, S. Khanna, I. Froumin, J. Shi, P. K. Choudhury, T. Beteille, F. Marmolejo, & N. Tognatta. (2019). Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116(14) 6732-6736.

@article{
  doi:10.1073/pnas.1814646116,
  author = {Prashant Loyalka  and Ou Lydia Liu  and Guirong Li  and Igor Chirikov  and Elena Kardanova  and Lin Gu  and Guangming Ling  and Ningning Yu  and Fei Guo  and Liping Ma  and Shangfeng Hu  and Angela Sun Johnson  and Ashutosh Bhuradia  and Saurabh Khanna  and Isak Froumin  and Jinghuan Shi  and Pradeep Kumar Choudhury  and Tara Beteille  and Francisco Marmolejo  and Namrata Tognatta },
  title = {Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  volume = {116},
  number = {14},
  pages = {6732-6736},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.1073/pnas.1814646116},
  URL = {https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1814646116},
  eprint = {https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1814646116}}