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Alignment among Normative, Prescriptive, and Descriptive Models of Computer Science Curriculum: The Effect of ABET Accreditation on CS Education

In May and June 2021, the author conducted a survey of the computing and mathematical graduation requirements of 500 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSCS) programs in the U.S. to determine alignment among these requirements and those recommended by ACM/IEEE-CS’s Computer Science Curricula 2013 guidelines and ABET’s Criteria for Accrediting Computing Programs 2021–2022 curricular criterion. Specifically, computing and mathematics credit-hour and course graduation requirements were determined for ABET-accredited and non-accredited BSCS programs within public and private universities. As (i) curricular guidelines are recommendations that do not have to be followed, (ii) curricular accreditation criteria are minimal constraints that may be exceeded, and (iii) non-accredited programs may choose to meet or exceed curricular accreditation criterion, it is possible that graduating computer science students are exposed to similar, or a wide variety, of coursework and associated topics. The survey results presented in this article provide broad answers to these three curricular possibilities. In turn, these results can contribute to future discussions concerning the perceived value of accreditation to students and industry stakeholders, allow educators in computer science departments to compare their curriculum to a large sample of other universities, and provide curricular committees additional insight into how various curricular guidelines are realistically being used.