Background: This paper describes research into two pedagogical approaches to foster transdisciplinarity in a graduate engineering course that involves education and computer science. Leveraging the Communities of Practice framework, we examine how students majoring in computer science can integrate new knowledge from education and computer science…

The importance of student engagement is long recognised. Students who are more engaged will be more motivated and inclined to complete their studies. The aim of this study is to understand barriers to engagement for first-year computing students, a cohort that traditionally have high non-progression rates. A qualitative descriptive design was…

This study explores the impact of three alternative grading systems--specifications grading, standards-based grading (SBG), and ungrading--on student motivation, engagement, stress, enjoyment, and perceptions of fairness. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted with students from mathematics, computer science, and statistics courses.…

The demand for qualified analytics professionals remains high with forecasts showing a continued need over the next few years. While this demand necessitates instruction in analytics in the classroom, many students find analytics concepts to be complicated and boring. This teaching brief describes a novel approach to teaching analytics through…

Gamification mechanisms have been increasingly integrated into educational environments to enhance learner's engagement and improve the effectiveness of online courses. However, the precise effects of gamification on learner's engagement, including the factors that influence this behavior, remain under-explored. This study addresses this gap by…

We have recently developed an automated approach to reduce students' rationalization of programming plagiarism and collusion by informing them about the matter and reporting uncommon similarities to them for each of their submissions. Although the approach has benefits, it does not greatly engage students, which might limit those benefits. To…

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) coupled with artificial intelligence have made computer programming skills indispensable for IT majors and for an increasing number of other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Like any hands-on skill, mastering computer programming requires dedicated…

Learning computer science (CS) is increasingly becoming a necessary component of K-12 education, but in most cases, teachers do not have either the essential knowledge to teach or a curriculum to follow. In this article, we analyze the outcomes from a yearlong, blended professional development (PD) program to teach teachers game design and coding…

This study aimed to examine the impact of the flipped classroom model applied in the information technologies courses on pre-service teachers' candidates' academic achievements, self-regulated learning skills, and classroom engagement. The research was conducted with a total of 96 pre-service teachers teacher candidates, 48 in the experimental…

Computer science is often integrated within early childhood education (ECE) through the use of educational robots. This requires adequate preparation of ECE teachers to program and debug, which can be done with scaffolding. In this paper, we use a QUANT + qual mixed method approach incorporating lag sequential analysis, ICAP framework coding,…

Background: Many studies have highlighted the positive effects of visual programming instruction (VPI) on students' learning experiences, programming self-efficacy and flow experience. However, there is a notable gap in the research on how these factors specifically impact programming achievement and learning intentions. Our study addresses this…

Learning trend has been shifted from a conventional way to a digital way in the form of E-learning, but it faces a high dropout ratio. Lack of engagement is one of the primary factors reported for this issue as the same type of course content is presented to learners despite their different background, knowledge and learning styles. Different…

In this manuscript, we describe a coding club we created and implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were purposeful in creating the club to: (a) focus on design and problem solving as the basis for learning computer coding and (b) include elements to improve the engagement of girls. We ran multiple iterations of a Girls Design with Code Club…

Purpose: In today's digital world, data-driven digital artefacts pose challenges for education, as many students lack an understanding of data and feel powerless when interacting with them. This paper aims to address these challenges and introduces the data awareness framework. It focuses on understanding data-driven technologies and reflecting on…

The purpose of this study was to explore how kindergarten students (aged 5-6 years) engaged with mathematics as they learned programming with robot coding toys. We video-recorded 16 teaching sessions of kindergarten students' (N = 36) mathematical and programming activities. Students worked in small groups (4-5 students) with robot coding toys on…