Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 1998. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 84 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).

Psycholinguistic research shows that it is unreasonable to expect programmers to easily find minor typos in their otherwise correct code. The Python Error Support Tool PEST was designed and developed to address this. PEST offers an explanation for why the error happened and presents a list of possible fixes that will allow the user’s code to compile. This tool was evaluated by several students with a beginner’s level of expertise in Python, and feedback was generally positive with tangible steps for improvement.

This project investigated the integration of computer-assisted education at Pinelands High School. A literature search was done on the definition of, the infrastructure for and models of, the integration of computer-assisted education. A new model, the Evolutionary Model, of computer-assisted education was developed, Computer-assisted education at Pinelands High School was measured in terms of the necessary infrastructure and the five phases of the Evolutionary Model. The school has integrated computer-assisted education and many of the teachers are involved at the second phase of the Evolutionary Model. The staff of the Computer and Mathematics departments are ahead of the general staff in the integration of computer-assisted education. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

Introductory computer science courses can be notoriously difficult for students, especially those outside of the major. There are many reasons for this, but the programming software itself may play a significant role.  To address this issue, we have developed Pythy, a web-based programming environment that allows students to write, execute, and test programming assignments from within the familiar interface of a web browser.  In this work, we discuss various aspects of Pythy in detail, including the rationale behind its design, the system architecture on which it is built, and the various functions offered by the software.  Next, we discuss an evaluation of Pythy\'s effectiveness during a programming course for non CS-majors offered at Virginia Tech, comparing it to a different software solution used in another programming course.  Results suggest that Pythy was successful in several target areas, including making it easier to get started with programming and providing feedback about program behavior.  Access log data from Pythy itself reveals details about how students used the system.  Finally, we conclude with a summary of key contributions and suggest some potential future directions for the system. / Master of Science

For nearly three decades, researchers have studied the persistent underrepresentation of women in computer science and computing-related fields. Findings indicate that recruitment and retention strategies result in short-term gains in interest and diversity in computer science. One recruitment strategy that shows promise to increase student interest in computer science is after-school programs. To increase the number of students exposed to and interested in computer science and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, a suburban school district in southeastern Pennsylvania started an after-school program. This fee-based program offers seven-week long robotics, programming, and science experiment courses for elementary and middle school students. This study used a quantitative approach with the expectancy-value model as the theoretical framework to examine whether there are lasting effects from this after-school program on course and career selection. The results show a higher likelihood of study participants, each of whom participated in an after-school program, to select computer science in high school than the general high school population. The results also show that the rate of computer science choice for this group is also significant when accounting for the gender of the participants. Family dynamics may have been the influencing factor. The results are not supportive of the after-school program influencing participants to study computer science at the collegiate level, but there is some support for study participants interest in a computing career. / Educational Psychology

This causal and correlational study was designed to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and to test its applicability to Valencia Community College (VCC) Engineering and Technology students as the target user group when investigating the factors influencing their decision to adopt and to utilize VMware as the target technology. In addition to the primary three indigenous factors: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention toward utilization, the model was also extended with enjoyment, external control, and computer self-efficacy as antecedents to perceived ease of use. In an attempt to further increase the explanatory power of the model, the Task-Technology Fit constructs (TTF) were included as antecedents to perceived usefulness. The model was also expanded with subjective norms and voluntariness to assess the degree to which social influences affect students decision for adoption and utilization. This study was conducted during the fall term of 2009, using 11 instruments: (1) VMware Tools Functions Instrument; (2) Computer Networking Tasks Characteristics Instrument; (3) Perceived Usefulness Instrument; (4) Voluntariness Instrument; (5) Subjective Norms Instrument; (6) Perceived Enjoyment Instrument; (7) Computer Self-Efficacy Instrument; (8) Perception of External Control Instrument; (9) Perceived Ease of Use Instrument; (10) Intention Instrument; and (11) a Utilization Instrument. The 11 instruments collectively contained 58 items. Additionally, a demographics instrument of six items was included to investigate the influence of age, prior experience with the technology, prior experience in computer networking, academic enrollment status, and employment status on student intentions and behavior with regard to VMware as a network virtualization technology. Data were analyzed using path analysis, regressions, and univariate analysis of variance in SPSS and AMOS for Windows. The results suggest that perceived ease of use was found to be the strongest determinant of student intention. The analysis also suggested that external control, measuring the facilitating conditions (knowledge, resources, etc) necessary for adoption was the highest predictor of perceived ease of use. Consistent with previous studies, perceived ease of use was found to be the strongest predictor of perceived usefulness followed by subjective norms as students continued to use the technology. Even though the integration of the task-technology fit construct was not helpful in explaining the variance in student perceived usefulness of the target technology, it was statistically significant in predicting student perception of ease of use. The study concluded with recommendations to investigate other factors (such as service quality and ease of implementation) that might contribute to explaining the variance in perceived ease of use as the primary driving force in influencing student decision for adoption. A recommendation was also made to modify the task-technology fit construct instruments to improve the articulation and the specificity of the task. The need for further examination of the influence of the instructor on student decision for adoption of a target technology was also emphasized.

Command line and version control skills are vital to computer science students during their education and as they enter the software industry. These skills are commonly taught to undergraduate students via traditional lecturing methods and brief hands-on activities. Many students struggle with learning the Git version control system because they are not familiar with the command line, or they do not understand how Git works internally. Recent research highlights the effectiveness of using interactive visualizations to teach computer science concepts. Thus, we developed novel command line and Git exercises with interactive visualizations. These exercises integrate with learning management systems to automate grading. We tested the effectiveness of the exercises in a CS2 course at a large research institution by conducting pre-assessments before and post-assessments after the students completed the exercises. We found that students performed significantly better on both the command line and Git post-assessments than on the pre-assessments. Furthermore, we found that students with less experience with the command line and Git achieved a significantly greater improvement from the pre-assessments to the post-assessments. Additionally, we found that students with different levels of command line and Git experience did not perform differently on the exercises. Therefore, the exercises provide a novel tool for teaching command line and Git concepts to undergraduate computer science students with any level of command line and Git experience. / Master of Science / Command line is a term used to refer to a text-based user interface that allows users to interact with their computers by inputting commands. Git is a version control system typically used to track the stages of development for a computer program. Command line and Git skills are vital to computer science students during their education and as they enter the software industry. These skills are commonly taught to undergraduate students via traditional lecturing methods and brief hands-on activities. Many students struggle with Git because they are not familiar with the command line, or they do not understand how Git works internally. Recent research highlights the effectiveness of using interactive visualizations to teach computer science concepts. Thus, we developed novel command line and Git exercises with interactive visualizations. These exercises integrate with learning management systems to automate grading. We tested the effectiveness of the exercises in a CS2 course at a large research institution by conducting pre-assessments before and post-assessments after the students completed the exercises. We found that students performed significantly better on the post-assessments than on the pre-assessments. Furthermore, we found that students with less experience with the command line and Git achieved a significantly greater improvement from the pre-assessments to the post-assessments. Therefore, the exercises provide a novel tool for teaching command line and Git concepts to undergraduate computer science students with any level of command line and Git experience.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagraming is commonly used in introductory Computer Science to teach basic object-oriented design, but there appears to be a lack of suitable software to support this task well. Many of the available programs focus on developing code and not on enhancing learning. Those that were designed for educational use sometimes have poor interfaces or are missing common and important features, such as multiple selection and undo/redo. There is a need for software that is tailored to an instructional environment and has all the useful and needed functionality for that specific task. This is the purpose of minimUML. It provides a minimum amount of UML, just what is commonly used in beginning programming classes, while providing a simple, usable interface. In particular, minimUML was designed to support abstract design while supplying features for exploratory learning and error avoidance. Some of the functionality supported includes multiple selection, undo/redo, flexible printing, cut and paste, and drag and drop. In addition, it allows for the annotation of diagrams, through text or freeform drawings, so students can receive feedback on their work. To test minimUML's ease of use, it was run through a small usability study. While a number of issues were raised, the tool generally received positive evaluations that lead us to believe that we have reached our goal. / Master of Science

In recent years, much attention has been directed to the use of educational games for learning computer science concepts. The motivation of game-based learning with positive experience has been deeply studied in the literature, but game design for improving code reading skills have much room for improvement. Being good at the reading code is important to a professional developer. To address this issue, we defined a new educationally-oriented mobile game application, aimed at promoting the development of code reading skills in a new and fun way. The strategy of this game is to find errors in pieces of codes. At each level, students should find all syntactic and semantic errors in the code in a certain time in order to advance to the next level. Of the numerous programming languages, we chose Java because it is one of the most popular programming languages. In many colleges, Java plays a major role in introductory courses. Our vision is to allow instructors to employ the game in their introduction to programming in Java course. In addition, we hope it could be adapted for use in introductory courses using different programming languages. Data collected during the project helps us evaluate the impact of game-based learning on code reading in programming languages. We asked undergraduate students at the department of computer science at Virginia Tech to play with the game during Spring 2017 semester. The collected data analyzed, and students believe that Code Reading Dojo improves their code reading skills in Java and overall programming ability, in additions to help them find errors in their own program. / Master of Science / In recent years, much attention has been directed to the use of educational games for learning computer science concepts. The motivation of game-based learning with positive experience has been deeply studied in the literature, but game design for improving code reading skills have much room for improvement. Being good at the reading code is important to a professional developer. To address this issue, we defined a new educationally-oriented mobile game application, aimed at promoting the development of code reading skills in a new and fun way. The strategy of this game is to find errors in pieces of codes. At each level, students should find all syntactic and semantic errors in the code in a certain time in order to advance to the next level. Of the numerous programming languages, we chose Java because it is one of the most popular programming languages. In many colleges, Java plays a major role in introductory courses. Our vision is to allow instructors to employ the game in their introduction to programming in Java course. In addition, we hope it could be adapted for use in introductory courses using different programming languages. Data collected during the project helps us evaluate the impact of game-based learning on code reading in programming languages. We asked undergraduate students at the department of computer science at Virginia Tech to play with the game during Spring 2017 semester. The collected data analyzed, and students believe that Code Reading Dojo improves their code reading skills in Java and overall programming ability, in additions to help them find errors in their own program.

OpenDSA is a system for creating rich eTextbooks that combine quality text with visualizations and interactive, auto-graded exercises. As OpenDSA gains recognition, its use increases each year. This mandates a scalable, reliable, and sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the fast-growing demand for OpenDSA access. We implemented OpenDSA-LTI, an interoperable infrastructure which transforms OpenDSA from a standalone, self-contained eTextbook to an integrated learning tool communicating with a Learning Management System (LMS) through the Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) protocol. OpenDSA-LTI delivers OpenDSA content and interactive materials to students through a reliable and secure LMS interface. LTI integration encourages OpenDSA adoption by providing easy, intuitive tools that help instructors to build and generate OpenDSA eTextbooks in their LMS courses. OpenDSA-LTI allows OpenDSA content developers to take advantage of various tools already provided by the LMS instead of reproducing these through their own proprietary services. The OpenDSA-LTI extendable design allows for adding new LTI-compliant exercises to OpenDSA books. This changes OpenDSA developers' efforts to searching for learning tools instead of reimplementing them. As an example, instead of maintaining the original OpenDSA programming evaluation engine, we could easily replace it with the Code Workout online drill-and-practice system. Since its launch in August 2016 until June 2017, OpenDSA-LTI has hosted 36 active courses offered by 25 different universities in 6 countries, 41 instructors have used OpenDSA-LTI to host their courses on the Canvas LMS, and the system has 2,729 registered students. / Master of Science / OpenDSA is a system for creating online textbooks that combine quality text with visualizations and interactive, auto-graded exercises. As OpenDSA gains recognition, its use increases each year. This mandates a scalable, reliable, and sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the fast-growing demand for OpenDSA access. We built OpenDSA-LTI, an online web application which transforms OpenDSA from a standalone, self-contained textbook to a learning tool which any university can integrate in their learning systems. OpenDSA-LTI delivers OpenDSA content and interactive materials to students through a reliable and secure interfaces. The new infrastructure encourages OpenDSA adoption by providing tools that help instructors to build and generate OpenDSA online textbooks in their institution’s learning systems. The OpenDSA-LTI extendable design allows for adding new exercises to OpenDSA online textbooks. This changes OpenDSA developers’ efforts to searching for other learning tools instead of creating them from scratch. As an example, instead of maintaining the original OpenDSA programming exercises, we could replace it with the Code Workout online programming evaluation system. Since its launch in August 2016 until June 2017, OpenDSA-LTI has hosted 36 active courses offered by 25 different universities in 6 countries, 41 instructors have used OpenDSA-LTI to host their courses on the Canvas LMS, and the system has 2,729 registered students.