This study aimed at developing a Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game-based (MORPG) Learning system which enabled instructors to construct a game scenario and manage sharable and reusable learning content for multiple courses. It used the curriculum of "Introduction to Computer Science" as a study case to assess students' learning…

The combination of Open Sim and Scratch4OS can be a worthwhile innovation for introductory programming courses, using a Community of Inquiry (CoI) model as a theoretical instructional design framework. This empirical study had a threefold purpose to present: (a) an instructional design framework for the beneficial formalization of a virtual…

This study proposes an instrument to determine and categorize computerphobia in college students, and reports findings from implementation of this instrument on education majors in a northeastern university in Turkey. 829 teacher education students were administered computerphobia scale (CPS) after they attended an introductory computer course.…

In the Internet era, students have increasingly lost interest in traditional lectures; as a consequence, their learning motivation and exam performance have decreased. The widespread adoption of learner-centered teaching methods that address this issue faces certain barriers, including: 1) the significant faculty effort necessary to prepare…

Advances in technology and changes in educational strategies have resulted in the integration of technology in the classroom. Multimedia instructional tools (MMIT) provide student-centered active-learning instructional activities. MMITs are common in introductory computer applications courses based on the premise that MMITs should increase student…

We report on the development, validation, and implementation of a collection of test items designed to detect misconceptions related to first-year computer science courses. To this end, we reworked the development scheme proposed by Almstrum et al. ("SIGCSE Bulletin" 38(4):132-145, 2006) to include students' artifacts and to…

We investigate the relationship between learning styles, online content usage and exam performance in an undergraduate introductory Computer Information Systems class comprised of both online video tutorials and in-person classes. Our findings suggest that, across students, (1) traditional learning style classification methodologies do not predict…

All Computer Information Systems programs require a database course for their majors. This paper describes an approach to such a course in which real world examples, both design projects and actual database application projects are incorporated throughout the semester. Students are expected to apply the traditional database concepts to actual…

Integrating interdisciplinary social studies topics and social responsibility concepts into a business education class can be meaningful for student learning. The discipline of social studies includes multiple areas such as economics, history, sociology, and anthropology. Social responsibility in a business sense means that companies are concerned…

In the 2014 study, "Interactive Online Learning on Campus: Testing MOOCs and Other Platforms in Hybrid Formats in the University System of Maryland," researchers examined the impact of using hybrid forms of interactive online learning in seven undergraduate courses across seven universities in Maryland. Hybrid forms of interactive online…

Research on the effectiveness of introductory programming environments often relies on post-test measures and attitudinal surveys to support its claims; but such instruments lack the ability to identify any explanatory mechanisms that can account for the results. This paper reports on a study designed to address this issue. Using Noss and Hoyles'…

Computational thinking has been gaining new impetus in the academic community and in K-12 level education. Scratch is a visual programming environment that can be utilized to teach and learn introductory computing concepts. There are some studies investigating the effectiveness of Scratch for K-12 level education. However, studies that have been…

Computer aided assessment systems enable the collection of exact time and date information on students' activity on a course. These activity patterns reflect students' study habits and these study habits further predict students' likelihood to pass or fail a course. By identifying such patterns, those who design the courses can enforce positive…

Learning the syntax, semantics, and concepts behind software engineering can be a challenging task for many individuals. This paper examines the Alice 3 software, a three-dimensional visual environment for teaching programming concepts, to determine if it is an effective tool for improving student achievement, raising self-efficacy, and engaging…

This paper describes a knowledge-based strategy for recommending educational resources-worked problems, exercises, quiz questions, and lecture notes-to learners in the first two courses in the introductory sequence of a computer science major (CS1 and CS2). The goal of the recommendation strategy is to provide support for personalized access to…