Perspectives on Authenticity: A Systematic Literature Review

Authenticity is a prominent concept in computer science education research. It is often invoked to justify learning environments that promise to connect educational settings with forms of practice and meaning beyond conventional classroom tasks. However, it remains unclear what exactly authenticity means in this field, and how it is conceptualized across computer science education research. This paper addresses this gap through a systematic literature review with a theory-informed qualitative synthesis. Based on 2092 records retrieved from several academic databases, we identified a final corpus of 49 publications. Drawing on educational research on authentic learning and related areas, we developed a deductively grounded category system that was inductively refined during analysis. Philosophical accounts of the concept of authenticity subsequently informed the theory-guided interpretation of the identified patterns. Our findings show that authenticity in CSEd is most frequently attributed to learning contexts and tasks, and most commonly justified through real-world or professional resemblance. In 41 of the 49 publications, authenticity was connected to realistic problems, professional practices, workplace-like settings, industry-related tools, or applications beyond school. Other forms of authenticity, including personal relevance and social or relational participation, were present but less dominant. We argue that this dominance is understandable in computer science education, a field closely tied to tools, applications, and professional practice, but conceptually incomplete. A more mature use of authenticity in computer science education should specify not only how learning resembles external practices, but also how learners experience these practices as meaningful and how they participate in disciplinary and social communities of practice.