Research on mental model representations developed by programmers during parallel program comprehension is important for informing and advancing teaching methods including model-based learning and visualizations. The goals of the research presented here were to determine: how the mental models of programmers change and develop as they learn…

In Computer Science (CS) education, understanding factors contributing to students' programming difficulties is crucial for effective learning support. By identifying specific issues students face, educators can provide targeted assistance to help them overcome obstacles and improve learning outcomes. While identifying sources of struggle, such as…

Research on the effectiveness of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) suggests that automatic hint generation has the best effect on learning outcomes when hints are provided on the level of intermediate steps. However, ITSs for programming tasks face the challenge to decide on the granularity of steps for feedback, since it is not a priori clear…

The global shortage of skilled programmers remains a persistent challenge. High dropout rates in introductory programming courses pose a significant obstacle to graduation. Previous studies highlighted learning difficulties in programming students, but their specific weaknesses remained unclear. This gap exists due to the predominant focus on the…

Background and Context: Self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are critical aspect of learning to program and are predictive of academic success. Early college students often struggle to use these skills, but can improve when given targeted instruction. However, it is not yet clear what skills are best to prioritize. Objective: We seek to create a…

Code quality is a critical aspect of programming, as high-quality code is easier to maintain, and code maintenance constitutes the majority of software costs. Consequently, code quality should be emphasized in programming education. While previous research has identified numerous code quality defects commonly made by students, the current state…

Software vulnerabilities in commercial products are an issue of national importance. The most prevalent breaches are input validation vulnerabilities, and these are easily avoidable. This dissertation contributes to cybersecurity education with a set of hands-on interventions tailored for three CS courses, a set of reflection prompts to encourage…

Learning in the computer laboratory is an important component when students learn computer programming. In this article, we analyse empirical data on novice students working in pairs in the laboratory. Using an approach inspired by phenomenography and variation theory, we specifically focus on how students' learning of theory and their learning of…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the forefront in discussions of the future of media and education. Although there are valid concerns, AI has the potential to be useful in learning new skills, particularly those related to computer programming. This case study depicts the ways AI was introduced to assist in teaching coding, specifically in a…

The increased trend of incorporating computer programming in the basic education system across countries requires the training of new educators. However, the current effort to increase the number of teachers teaching programming is through professional development programs for computer science (CS) teachers and from other content areas. Meanwhile,…

Explain-in-Plain-English (EiPE) questions are used by some researchers and educators to assess code reading skills. EiPE questions require students to briefly explain (in plain English) the purpose of a given piece of code, without restating what the code does line-by-line. The premise is that novices who can explain the purpose of a piece of code…

Understanding the emotions experienced by programming students, particularly concerning gender and education level, is increasingly critical. However, only limited research has used text data to examine these differences within the context of programming education and emotions. This study aims to determine programming students' emotions and any…

"Stochastic programs," which are programs that produce probabilistic output, are a pivotal paradigm in various areas of CS education from introductory programming to machine learning and data science. Despite their importance, the problem of automatically grading such programs remains surprisingly unexplored. In this paper, we formalize…

A wide range of benefits have been posited from participation in competitive programming contests. However, an analysis of participation in north American regional contests in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) shows that participation in these contests is sharply declining, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover,…

Continuing to fill the literature gap, this research replicated and expands a prior study of student performance in database normalization in an introductory database course. The data was collected from four different universities, each having different prerequisite courses for their database course. Student performance on a database normalization…