Despite the importance of gamification in education, there is still ongoing debate in the literature about how to design effective and useful educational gamification. This is because gamification is a complex concept that requires combining various game elements together. To further contribute to this discussion, this study first develops a…

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…

This study investigates the effect of cognitive control strategies on young children's emotional and attentional states during coding learning. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 46 children aged 5-6 years, dividing them into an experimental group using cognitive control strategies (planning, monitoring, reflecting) and a control group…

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…

Understanding of code is critical for debugging computer programs. Chunking, breaking code into smaller parts, has been proven to be an effective strategy for analyzing code at various levels of abstraction. Novice debuggers struggle to comprehend code and recognize its underlying structure and components. They often debug code in an arbitrary and…

Context: With the introduction of Computer Science (CS) into curricula worldwide, teachers' adoption of CS pedagogical content is essential to ensure the long-term success of reform initiatives. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs play a key role in this process. Unfortunately, adoption is seldom evaluated in CS-CPDs or CPDs in…

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…

The choice of programming language for education is an intensely debated topic. On the one hand, the programming language is supposed to be "relevant" in that its organisation, structures, and paradigms adhere to current standards and best practices in industry and academia. On the other hand, the programming language is expected to be…

Contribution: Using threshold concepts as the framework for curriculum design, a project on neural network methods for solving differential equations is presented, with a rich set of transformative concepts from mathematics and computer science. Projects of this kind complement a typical curriculum with expertise that is crucial for critique and…

Background and Context: Hour of Code is one of the largest educational campaigns implemented. It exposes millions of learners, to an hour of computer science fundamentals. With such a large impact, a large number of research articles have been published on the topic. This research ranges from reports of experiments testing the efficacy of Hour of…

This study investigates the potential of using ChatGPT as a teachable agent to support students' learning through teaching, specifically in programming education. While learning by teaching (LBT) is an effective pedagogical strategy, traditional teachable agents often struggle with facilitating dynamic, dialogue-based interactions. Our research…

Research Questions: While community college transfer (i.e., upward transfer) represents an important mechanism for advancing equity across STEM fields, existing studies of gender and women's participation within computer science have largely excluded the perspectives of upward transfer students. We address this gap in the literature by exploring…

The current educational system relies heavily on manual grading, posing challenges such as delayed feedback and grading inaccuracies. Automated grading tools (AGTs) offer solutions but come with limitations. To address this, "GRAD-AI" is introduced, an advanced AGT that combines automation with teacher involvement for precise grading,…

Learning programming is a complex process that requires understanding abstract concepts and solving problems efficiently. To support and motivate students, educators can use technology-enhanced learning (TEL) in the form of visual tools for knowledge mapping. Mytelemap, a prototype tool, uses TEL to organize and visualize information, enhancing…

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of the microlearning instructional approach in an online introductory database programming classroom. The ultimate goal of this study is to inform educators and instructional designers on the design and development of microlearning content that maximizes student learning. Grounded within the…