The human aspects of cyber security are fundamental as these are interlinked with processes and technology in building resilience against an evolving and complex threat landscape. It is vital to teach future cyber security specialists sufficient knowledge about human aspects in order to strengthen the defences and defend against malicious actors.…

Objectives: The traditional, instructor-led form of live coding has been extensively studied, with findings showing that this form of live coding imparts similar learning to static-code examples. However, a concern with Traditional Live Coding is that it can turn into a passive learning activity for students as they simply observe the instructor…

In recent years, there has been a rise in recognition of the need for computing education to bridge the gap between academia and industry. In addition, educational researchers are also interested in increasing student engagement by grounding learning experiences in real-life concerns, community issues, or personal interests. Unfortunately,…

Students face several difficulties in introductory programming courses (CS1), often leading to high dropout rates, student demotivation, and lack of interest. The literature has indicated that the adequate use of gamification might improve learning in several domains, including CS1. However, the understanding of which (and how) factors influence…

Computer Science (CS) Unplugged activities are designed to engage students with CS concepts. It is an active learning approach combining physical interaction with visual representation. This research article investigates the impact of CS Unplugged on students' understanding of the bubble sort algorithm. Algorithm visualization, traditionally…

Objectives: This study addresses the challenges faced by students repeating an introductory programming course (CS1) at an online university, where dropout and failure rates remain high. While programming education has been widely studied, targeted interventions for repeating students remain scarce. Our research aims to analyze the experiences of…

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of Minecraft-based coding activities on computational thinking (CT) of middle school students. In the study, CT was conceptualized so that it encapsulates not only the knowledge of computational concepts (e.g., loops and conditionals) but also the use of CT practices (e.g., testing and debugging).…

Nearly all software built today impinges upon end-user privacy and needs to comply with relevant regulations. Therefore, there have been increasing calls for integrating considerations of compliance with privacy regulations throughout the software engineering lifecycle. However, software engineers are typically trained in the technical fields and…

This article provides a survey of methods and paradigms for teaching Computer Networks (CN). Since the theoretical concepts are rather abstract in this subject, and students often find them too technical and difficult to understand, many authors attempt to answer the question on how to improve students' motivation and interest for the complex…

Abstraction is one of the most fundamental ideas in computer science (CS), and as such, according to Bruner, it should be taught spirally, starting as early as possible and revisited at every level of education. However, teaching CS abstraction to novices is a very challenging task, and CS educational research has often demonstrated students'…

With ever-greater reliance of the developed world on information and communication technologies, constructing secure software has become a top priority. To produce secure software, security activities need to be integrated throughout the software development lifecycle. One such activity is security design analysis (SDA), which identifies security…

Gamification is the use of game elements in domains other than games. Gamification use is often suggested for difficult activities because it enhances users' engagement and motivation level. Due to such benefits, the use of gamification is also proposed in education environments to improve students' performance, engagement, and satisfaction.…

Recursion is one of the most important and hardest topics in lower division computer science courses. As it is an advanced programming skill, the best way to learn it is through targeted practice exercises. But the best practice problems are time consuming to manually grade by an instructor. As a consequence, students historically have completed…

In computer science, students could benefit from exposure to critical programming concepts from multiple perspectives. Peer review is one method to allow students to experience authentic uses of the concepts in an activity that is not itself programming. In this work, we examine how to implement the peer review process in early, object-oriented…

The Computer Science for All movement is bringing CS to K-12 classrooms across the nation. At the same time, new technologies created by computer scientists have been reproducing existing inequities that directly impact today's youth, while being "promoted and perceived as more objective or progressive than the discriminatory systems of a…