As new introductory block-based coding applications for young students to learn basic computer science concepts, such as, loops and conditionals, continue to increase in popularity, it is necessary to consider the best method of teaching students these skills. Many of these products continue to exhibit programmatic misconceptions of these concepts and many students struggle with how to apply what they learn to a text-based format due to the difficulties with learning the syntactic structure not present in block-based programming languages. If the goal of teaching young students how to program is meant to develop a set of skills they may apply when learning more complex programming languages, then discerning how they are introduced to those practices is imperative. However, few studies have examined how the specific modality in which students are taught to program effects how they learn and what skills they develop. More specifically, research has yet to effectively investigate modality in the context of an educational coding game where the modality feature is controlled, and content is consistent throughout game-play. This is mainly due to the lack of available games with this feature designed into the application. This dissertation explores whether programming modality effects how well students can learn and transfer computer science concepts and practices from an educational programming game. I proposed that by being guided from a blocks-based to text-based programming language would instill a deeper understanding of basic computer science concepts and would support learning and improve transfer and performance on new challenging tasks. Two experimental studies facilitated game-play sessions on the developed application for this project. The first study was a 2x2 between subjects design comparing educational module (game versus basic) and programming modality (guided versus free choice). The findings from Study 1 informed the final version design for the module used in the second study where only the game module was used in order to focus the comparison between programming modality. Findings showed that students who coded using the game module performed better on a learning test. Study 2 results showed that students who are transitioned from blocks-based to text-based programming language learn basic computer science concepts with greater success than those with the free choice modality. A comparative study was conducted using quantitative data from learning measures and qualitative video data from the interviews during the challenge task of the second study. This study examined how students at the extreme levels of performance utilized the toggle switch feature during game-play and how the absence of the feature impacted how they completed the challenge task. This analysis showed two different methods of toggle switch usage being implemented by a high and low performing student. The high performing student utilized the resources more often during the challenge tasks in lieu of leveraging the toggle switch and were still able to submit high level code. Results suggest that a free choice student who uses the feature as a tool to check their prewritten code rather than a as short cut for piecing code together as blocks and submitting the text upon the final attempt. This practice leads to a shallower understanding of the basic concepts and make it extremely difficult to expand and apply that knowledge to a more difficult task. This dissertation includes five chapters: an introduction and theoretical framework, a game design framework and implementation description, two experimental investigations, and a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Chapter one provides the conceptual and theoretical framework for the two experimental investigations. Chapter two describes the theory and design structure for the game developed for this dissertation work. Chapter three and four will discuss the effects of programming modality on learning outcomes. Specifically, chapter 3 focuses on implications of programming modality when determining how to implement changes for the design of the game for Study 2. Chapter five discusses a comparative analysis that investigated differing work flow patterns within the free choice condition between high and low performing students. Results from these three chapters illustrate the importance of examining this component of the computer science education process in supplemental games for middle and high school students. Additionally, this work contributes in furthering the investigation of these educational games and discusses implications for design of similar applications.

by Lam, Hin-ki Isaac. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-220). / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- The Problem --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Related Works --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Contribution of the Present Study --- p.8 / Chapter 1.4 --- Outline of the Thesis --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Nontermination and Recursive Definition --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1 --- Prolog Execution Model --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2 --- Nontermination --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3 --- Exit Condition --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4 --- Exit-Reaching Process --- p.29 / Chapter 2.5 --- Parameter Based Detection --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Parameter Analysis --- p.38 / Chapter 3.1 --- Parameter Links --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Parameter Links and Parameter Modifying Process --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Parameter Links of Multi-Parameters --- p.43 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Parameter Links in Indirect Recursive Definition --- p.44 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Parameter Links with Special Parameters --- p.46 / Chapter 3.1.5 --- Parameter Links of the Same Name Parameters --- p.47 / Chapter 3.1.6 --- The Significance of Parameter Links --- p.49 / Chapter 3.2 --- Cyclic Parameter Links --- p.51 / Chapter 3.3 --- Parameter Link Detection --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Graph Technique --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.1.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.1.2 --- on Parameter Links --- p.59 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Algorithms --- p.62 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Data Analysis --- p.70 / Chapter 4.1 --- Data Links --- p.72 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- The Direct Recursive Definition Case --- p.76 / Chapter 4.1.1.1 --- Subgoal Procedures with Facts Alone --- p.76 / Chapter 4.1.1.2 --- Procedures with Rules --- p.79 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- The Indirect Recursive Definition Case --- p.84 / Chapter 4.2 --- on the Difference between Pure and General Prolog --- p.86 / Chapter 4.3 --- Data Link Significance --- p.89 / Chapter 4.4 --- Connected Data-link Lists --- p.92 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Data Links and Connected Data-link Lists --- p.92 / Chapter 4.4.1.1 --- Connected Data-link Lists and Data Transfer Sequence --- p.95 / Chapter 4.4.1.2 --- Connected Data-link Lists and Backtracking --- p.97 / Chapter 4.4.1.3 --- Connected Data-link Lists and the Recursion Result --- p.99 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Cyclic and Non-Cyclic Connected Data-link Lists --- p.100 / Chapter 4.4.2.1 --- Non-Cyclic Connected Data-link Lists and Exit Conditions --- p.102 / Chapter 4.4.2.2 --- Cyclic Connected Data-link Lists and Nontermination --- p.104 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Multi-Connected Data-link Lists --- p.107 / Chapter 4.4.3.1 --- in One Cyclic Parameter Link --- p.107 / Chapter 4.4.3.2 --- in Multi-Cyclic Parameter Links --- p.115 / Chapter 4.4.3.3 --- The Case of Multiple Recursive Subgoals in the Same Rule --- p.120 / Chapter 4.5. --- Special Parameters and Data Links --- p.125 / Chapter 4.5.1. --- Data Links with Special Parameters Only --- p.126 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Data Links with Both Special Parameters and Subgoals --- p.136 / Chapter 4.6 --- Data Links and Infinite Data Transfer Sequence Detection --- p.142 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- Special Cases --- p.150 / Chapter 5.1 --- Interdependent Cyclic Parameter Links --- p.150 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Interdependent Cyclic Parameter Links through Common Parameters --- p.151 / Chapter 5.1.1.1 --- Interdependency between Cyclic and Non-cyclic Parameter Links and Interdependency between Cyclic Parameter Link and Subgoals --- p.158 / Chapter 5.1.1.2 --- Interdependency between Cyclic Parameter Links --- p.165 / Chapter 5.1.1.2.1 --- Lengths of Cyclic Connected- data Links in Different Ratios --- p.171 / Chapter 5.1.1.2.2 --- Cyclic Parameter Links with Lengths in Different Ratios --- p.182 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Interdependent Cyclic Parameter Links through Common Subgoals --- p.196 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Interdependent Cyclic Parameter Links with Special Parameters --- p.202 / Chapter 5.2 --- A Special Case of Cyclic Parameter Links established through Special Parameters --- p.208 / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- Discussion and Conclusion --- p.213 / Chapter 6.1 --- The Results and Implications --- p.213 / Chapter 6.2 --- Limitations and Future Research --- p.215 / Chapter 6.3 --- Conclusion --- p.217 / Reference --- p.219

Hung, Kwong Chin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 15-16). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: leaves 294-297. Includes index. / by Charles Rich. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING / Bibliography: leaves 158-162. / by Michael Tzu-cheng Yeh. / M.S.

Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 237-242. / Ph.D.

Data Flow Tracking (DFT) is a technique broadly used in a variety of security applications such as attack detection, privacy leak detection, and policy enforcement. Although effective, DFT inherits the high overhead common to in-line monitors which subsequently hinders their adoption in production systems. Typically, the runtime overhead of DFT systems range from 3× to 100× when applied to pure binaries, and 1.5× to 3× when inserted during compilation. Many performance optimization approaches have been introduced to mitigate this problem by relaxing propagation policies under certain conditions but these typically introduce the issue of inaccurate taint tracking that leads to over-tainting or under-tainting. Despite acknowledgement of these performance / accuracy trade-offs, the DFT literature consistently fails to provide insights about their implications. A core reason, we believe, is the lack of established methodologies to understand accuracy. In this dissertation, we attempt to address both efficiency and accuracy issues. To this end, we begin with libdft, a DFT framework for COTS binaries running atop commodity OSes and we then introduce two major optimization approaches based on statically and dynamically analyzing program binaries. The first optimization approach extracts DFT tracking logics and abstracts them using TFA. We then apply classic compiler optimizations to eliminate redundant tracking logic and minimize interference with the target program. As a result, the optimization can achieve 2× speed-up over base-line performance measured for libdft. The second optimization approach decouples the tracking logic from execution to run them in parallel leveraging modern multi-core innovations. We apply his approach again applied to libdft where it can run four times as fast, while concurrently consuming fewer CPU cycles. We then present a generic methodology and tool for measuring the accuracy of arbitrary DFT systems in the context of real applications. With a prototype implementation for the Android framework – TaintMark, we have discovered that TaintDroid’s various performance optimizations lead to serious accuracy issues, and that certain optimizations should be removed to vastly improve accuracy at little performance cost. The TaintMark approach is inspired by blackbox differential testing principles to test for inaccuracies in DFTs, but it also addresses numerous practical challenges that arise when applying those principles to real, complex applications. We introduce the TaintMark methodology by using it to understand taint tracking accuracy trade-offs in TaintDroid, a well-known DFT system for Android. While the aforementioned works focus on the efficiency and accuracy issues of DFT systems that dynamically track data flow, we also explore another design choice that statically tracks information flow by analyzing and instrumenting the application source code. We apply this approach to the different problem of integer error detection in order to reduce the number of false alarmings.

Thesis. 1978. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: p. 110-111. / by Rowland Frank Archer, Jr. / M.S.

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