Software development is no longer a task limited to professionally trained computer programmers. Increasing support for software customization through scripting, the opening of application programmer interfaces on the Web, and a growing need for domain specific application support have all contributed to an increase in end-user programming. Unfortunately, learning to program remains a challenging task, and the majority of end-user programmers lack any formal education in software development. Instead, these users must piece together their understanding of programming through trial and error, examples found online, and help from peers and colleagues. While current approaches to address the difficulties facing end-user programmers seek to change the nature of the programming task, I argue that these challenges often mirror those faced by all novice programmers. Thus, pedagogical solutions must also be explored. This dissertation work investigates the challenges that end-user programmers face from a computer science education perspective. I have engaged in a cycle of learner-centered design to answer the high-level questions: What do users know; what might they need to know; how are they learning; and how might we help users discover and learn what they need or want to know? In so doing, I uniquely frame end-user programming challenges as issues related to knowledge and understanding about computer science. Rather than building new languages or programming tools, I address these difficulties through new types of instructional materials and opportunities for felicitous engagement with them. This work is contextualized within a specific domain of non-traditional programmers: graphic and web designers who write scripts as part of their careers. Through an in-depth, learner-centered investigation of this user population, this dissertation makes five specific contributions: (1) A detailed characterization of graphic and web design end-user programmers and their knowledge of fundamental computing concepts. (2) An analysis of the existing information space that graphic and web designers rely on for help. (3) The implementation of a novel case-based learning aid named ScriptABLE that is explicitly designed to leverage existing user practices while conveying conceptual knowledge about programming. (4) Initial confirmatory evidence supporting case-based learning aids for the informal computing education of web and graphic design end-user programmers. (5) An argument in support of the value of normative computing knowledge among informally trained programmers.

As a result of the interactive nature of modern programming languages the perception has developed that proper planning of a solution, reasoned action during the process of problem solving and evaluation of the solution have become less important during computer programming. Learn often rely on the programming language to help them solve a problem, without themselves planning the solution beforehand and then using a computer language to implement the solution. This approach usually leads to using bad programming techniques, resulting in unstructured programmes or rendering the learner unable to solve the problem. The importance of continuous reflection by learners while doing a programming activity has been advocated for quite some time... / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Low student success rates in introductory computer programming classes result in low student retention rates in computer science programs. For some sections of the course a traditional approach began using C# in the .Net development environment immediately. An experimental course redesign for one section was prepared that began with a study of HTML and JavaScript and focused on having students build web pages for several weeks; after that the experimental course used C# and the .Net development environment, covering all the material that was covered in the traditional sections. Students were more successful in the experimental section, with a higher percentage of the students passing the course and a higher percentage of the students continuing on to take at least one additional computer science course. / Department of Computer Science

As a result of the interactive nature of modern programming languages the perception has developed that proper planning of a solution, reasoned action during the process of problem solving and evaluation of the solution have become less important during computer programming. Learn often rely on the programming language to help them solve a problem, without themselves planning the solution beforehand and then using a computer language to implement the solution. This approach usually leads to using bad programming techniques, resulting in unstructured programmes or rendering the learner unable to solve the problem. The importance of continuous reflection by learners while doing a programming activity has been advocated for quite some time... / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Learning how to program is a difficult task: students must learn programming concepts, a language's syntax, and a software environment that will assist their programming activities. In this work we attempt to learn more about novice programming errors so that we can provide better tool support and information for instructors. We discuss our study where, with a software monitor, we tracked students' errors and their usage of the Gild integrated development environment. Based on our log file data, we describe student interactions with Gild: their first use, the features they use, and how they used them. It was found that a small number of error types accounted for the majority of errors made. Although feed-back to Gild's extra error help feature was largely positive, improvements to this feature are required as it was found that the errors that students take the longest to fix are also less frequently made.

Learning to program is acknowledged to be difficult; programming is a complex intellectual activity and cannot be learnt without practice. Research has shown that first year IT students presently struggle with setting up compilers, learning how to use a programming editor and understanding abstract programming concepts. Large introductory class sizes pose a great challenge for instructors in providing timely, individualised feedback and guidance for students when they do their practice. This research investigates the problems and identifies solutions. An interactive and constructive web-based programming environment is designed to help beginning students learn to program in high-level, object-oriented programming languages such as Java and C#. The environment eliminates common starting hurdles for novice programmers and gives them the opportunity to successfully produce working programs at the earliest stage of their study. The environment allows students to undertake programming exercises anytime, anywhere, by "filling in the gaps" of a partial computer program presented in a web page, and enables them to receive guidance in getting their programs to compile and run. Feedback on quality and correctness is provided through a program analysis framework. Students learn by doing, receiving feedback and reflecting - all through the web. A key novel aspect of the environment is its capability in supporting small &quotfill in the gap" programming exercises. This type of exercise places a stronger emphasis on developing students' reading and code comprehension skills than the traditional approach of writing a complete program from scratch. It allows students to concentrate on critical dimensions of the problem to be solved and reduces the complexity of writing programs.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Jan 5, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

Plagiarism among students of introductory programming courses has been increasing over time. The ease of exchange of information brought by the Internet can be the factor responsible for this increase. In many cases, students try to disguise the plagiarism making some modifications to the source code. However, some masking techniques are extremely complex to be detected and may not be seen with the naked eye. In this dissertation, detection techniques were analyzed and, on this basis, was developed a system able to detect plagiarism in source code. This system is based on the representation code as an abstract syntax tree and Karp-Rabin Greedy String Tiling algorithm. The system was evaluated using a source-code base of students of programming disciplines. Oracle based comparison was performed to compare the system with others. The oracle was created from the manual analysis of the teacher of the subject, which was marked if there was plagiarism or not in each pair of source code. To represent the results, ROC curves and confusion matrices were used. The same procedure was applied to existing systems, allowing direct comparison of results. More specifically, we use the value of the area under the curve and the minimum distance to point (0, 1) of the ROC space, since these figures represent the classification performance. The analysis of results shows that, for the sample used, the developed system obtained higher area under the curve and also the shortest distance to the point (0, 1) of the space ROC. However, we find that the choice of similarity detection tool in source code will depend on conservative or liberal profile of teaching. / O plágio entre alunos de disciplinas introdutórias de programação vem aumentando ao longo do tempo. A facilidade na troca de informações trazida pela Internet pode ser um dos fatores responsáveis por esse aumento. Em muitos casos, os alunos tentam disfarçar o plágio fazendo algumas modificações no código-fonte. Porém, algumas técnicas de disfarce são extremamente complexas e podem não ser detectadas a olho nu. Neste trabalho, foram analisadas as técnicas de detecção e, com base nelas, foi desenvolvido um sistema capaz de detectar plágio em código-fonte. Este sistema é baseado na representação do código como uma árvore sintática abstrata e no algoritmo Karp-Rabin Greedy String Tiling. O sistema foi avaliado utilizando uma base de códigos-fonte de alunos de disciplinas programação. Foi realizada uma comparação baseada em oráculo para comparar o sistema com os demais. O oráculo foi criado a partir da análise do docente da disciplina, onde foi marcado se havia plágio ou não em cada par de código-fonte. Para representar os resultados, foram utilizadas curvas ROC e matrizes de confusão. O mesmo procedimento foi aplicado aos sistemas já existentes, o que permitiu a comparação direta entre os resultados. Mais especificamente, utilizamos o valor da área sob a curva e a distância mínima para o ponto (0, 1) do espaço ROC, uma vez que esses valores representam o desempenho de classificação. A análise dos resultados indica que, para a amostra utilizada, o sistema desenvolvido obteve o maior valor da área sob a curva e também a menor distância para o ponto (0, 1) do espaço ROC. No entanto, concluímos que a escolha de uma ferramenta de detecção de similaridade em código-fonte dependerá bastante do perfil conservador ou liberal do docente.

Submitted by ALEX KANTOROWICZ BUCK (alexbuck16@gmail.com) on 2018-11-09T10:59:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_ALEXBUCK_FloMenezes.pdf: 17127016 bytes, checksum: 650f5b37fc496787da1c11fd2a06cc4d (MD5) / Rejected by Laura Mariane de Andrade null (laura.andrade@ia.unesp.br), reason: Solicitamos que realize uma nova submissão seguindo as orientações abaixo: - os itens “capa” e “folha de rosto” nos itens pré-textuais são obrigatórios segundo as normas da ABNT, portanto devem constar no arquivo anexo. Caso seja necessário, consulte o modelo em: http://www.ia.unesp.br/Home/Biblioteca/orientacoes-para-a-normalizacao-de-trabalhos-academicos_iaunesp_26_03.pdf Caso haja dúvidas, consulte a biblioteca. Agradecemos a compreensão. on 2018-11-09T16:15:48Z (GMT) / Submitted by ALEX KANTOROWICZ BUCK (alexbuck16@gmail.com) on 2018-11-09T18:51:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_ALEXBUCK_VFcorrigida.pdf: 17311327 bytes, checksum: dba48ccfa3746f5de4394a82e1e9f33c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Laura Mariane de Andrade null (laura.andrade@ia.unesp.br) on 2018-11-09T23:25:39Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 buck_ak_me_ia.pdf: 17280007 bytes, checksum: be673561d77174ea5cddd7887280050c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-09T23:25:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 buck_ak_me_ia.pdf: 17280007 bytes, checksum: be673561d77174ea5cddd7887280050c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-17 / Durante o período renascentista, Leonardo da Vinci cunhou o termo Fantasia Essata para descrever processos nos quais arte e ciência estivessem integrados, quando dispositivos desenvolvidos pelo conhecimento científico se colocavam a serviço da invenção artística. O objetivo do primeiro capítulo da dissertação é apresentar uma discussão sobre os efeitos produzidos pela inserção dessas máquinas, desenvolvidas especificamente para o fazer musical, sobre o campo da composição. Para isso, parti da escolha de alguns exemplos de máquinas musicais respeitando uma linha cronológica que compreende o período de meados do século XIX, com a invenção dos autômatos de Jaques de Vaucanson, aos dias atuais, com o surgimento do computador e, mais recentemente, da inteligência artificial. No segundo capítulo, trato estritamente do processo de elaboração das duas obras acusmáticas que produzi durante o Mestrado — Jazzex no1 (octofônica) e Fantasia Essata (estéreo) — e apresento uma breve discussão sobre as particularidades do processo composicional acusmático, uma modalidade de composição que estrutura o discurso a partir de sons prontos (sons concretos). No terceiro capítulo, apresento alguns patches produzidos durante o Mestrado nas linguagens de programação SuperCollider e OpenMusic. / During Renaissance period, Leonardo da Vinci coined the term Fantasia Essata to describe processes in which art and science were integrated; when devices developed by scientific knowledge were used to serve artistic invention. First chapter’s main goal is to present a discussion about effects produced by incorporation of these machines, developed specifically for musical making, into compositional field. To accomplish this goal, I arbitrarily chose some examples of those musical machines, respecting a chronological line that covers the mid-nineteenth century, with the invention of Jaques de Vaucanson’s automata, to the present day, with the emergence of computer and, more recently, artificial intelligence. In the second chapter, I deal strictly with aspect concerning the elaborating of the two acousmatic works produced during my Master degree - Jazzex nº1 (octophonic) and Fantasia Essata (stereo) - and a brief discussion on the particularities of acousmatic compositional process, a composition modality in which the discourse is constructed from ready-made sounds (concrete sounds). In the third chapter, I present some patches produced during my research in the programming languages SuperCollider and OpenMusic.

Many learners find the study of introductory computer programming difficult. This is also true of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and we need an improved understanding of how they learn programming. After reviewing the constructivist approach to teaching and learning and investigating ADHD, this study explored strategies for constructive learning of introductory programming. The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Karplus learning cycle to teach introductory programming. This was done through qualitative research from an interpretive perspective. Action research techniques were employed and data analysed using grounded theory methods. Four major constructivist teaching categories emerged, all of which support the use of the Karplus cycle. It is concluded that the three-phase Karplus cycle can be used to assist these learners learn introductory programming. However, it needs to be understood more broadly and the middle phase broken into two subphases to ensure effective learning. / Mathematical Sciences / M. Sc. (Mathematical Sciences)