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Research-based disposition list

This page presents a comprehensive list of dispositions required by computing professionals, which can be used to inform undergraduate degree programs. The research-based discipline-agnostic dispositions will be relevant to other disciplines as well. A prospective list of computing-specific dispositions is proposed.

Discipline-Agnostic Dispositions

These dispositions are likely to be applicable across disciplines.  Because dispositions take time to develop and must be experienced in multiple contexts, we recommend selecting those most applicable to your students and using a spiral model to promote them throughout your program.

  • Collaborative Orientation
    • Valuing Collaboration
    • Valuing Communication
    • Being Helpful
    • Being a Team Player
    • Being Willing to Speak Up
    • Being Respectful and Humble
    • Being Approachable
    • Being Empathetic
  • Conscientiousness
    • Being Perseverant
    • Being Detail-Oriented
    • Being Self-Driven and Intrinsically Motivated
    • Being Ethical
    • Being Hardworking 
  • Intellectual Openness
    • Being Open-Minded
    • Being Open to Differences
    • Being Open to Critical Feedback and Failure
    • Being Willing to Ask for Help
    • Being Adaptable
    • Being Willing to Work with Ambiguity
    • Being Curious
    • Being Creative and Innovative
    • Being Passionate
    • Being Willing to Take on a Challenge
    • Being Able to Think on your Feet
    • Being a Jack-of-all-Trades
  • Continuous Learning and Upskilling
    • Valuing Lifelong Learning
    • Valuing Responsible use of Artificial Intelligence
  • Self-Regulation
    • Being Self-Reflective
    • Being Resilient
    • Being Confident
    • Being Positive
    • Being Patient
    • Valuing Work-Life Balance

Computing-Specific Dispositions

This list of dispositions was inspired by both interviews and work with computing faculty. They have not been verified by research results, but we recommend that computing programs consider explicit development of these dispositions during relevant technical courses.

Each of the dispositions listed begins with the word “valuing” to indicate that this is a mindset that students and professionals should value – rather than seeing activities such as designing, debugging, and testing as useless extras.

  • Valuing Validation and Testing 
  • Valuing Design Before Development
  • Valuing Incremental Development

About the List 

This list of dispositions was generated based on a Systematic Literature Review and interviews of computing professionals and managers, as part of the DEAPening Employer-Academia Partnership project.  Related literature is included in the list of references below.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 2111097 and No. 2417492.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

References

Janakiraman, S., Sabin, M., Exter, E., Duan, S. (2025). Preliminary results from a systematic literature review on computing competencies valued in the workplace. ACM Transactions on Computing Education. doi: 10.1145/3785359

Duan, S., Exter, M., Tagare, D.+, Sabin, M., & Janakiraman, S. (2023). Essential competencies for computing managers: Skills and dispositions. Education and Information Technologies, 29(2). 2539-2578. doi:10.1007/s10639-023-11869-4

Exter, M., Yakut, N., Tagare, D., Sabin, S., (2025, November). Work In Progress: How do computing professionals and faculty rank the importance of dispositions and cross-disciplinary skills. In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). Nashville, TN. doi: 10.1109/FIE63693.2025.11328210

Exter, M. E., Tagare, D., & Sabin, M. (2024, March).  Develop a Competency-Based Curriculum that Purposefully integrates computing skills, cross-disciplinary skills, and dispositions. In SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. Portland, OR. doi: 10.1145/3626253.3633410  [workshop]

Tagare, D. Tavakoli, J. , Exter, M., Sabin M., & Frezza, S. (2023, October). Beyond the cognitive: Educator readiness for fostering dispositions. In Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). doi:10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343241