The department of computer science, across many schools in the US, have been seeing a constant increase in enrollments over the last decade. This particularly impacts class sizes of introductory courses, as they are usually listed as required prerequisites courses. The students in these courses typically have very little or zero prior experience with programming. In such course settings, it is not an exaggeration to state that most students in these courses spend more one-on-one time with the course teaching assistants than they do with their course instructors. This implies that the kind of individual attention provided by the TAs of such courses to their students has a very high impact on the students’ learning and the quality of the TAs would greatly impact the quality of the course and directly or indirectly also impact the student retention rate and their interest in computer science for their academic/industry careers. We wanted to take a closer look at what it is that these TAs do, and how they do it. We observed TAs from two introductory courses for almost about two semesters, and conducted a focus group meeting each with TAs and students enrolled in these course. We found that the TAs felt responsible for instilling an interest in computer science in the students, apart from helping them to learn by themselves. We also found that the students see teaching assistants as a very valuable resource, when it comes to actually applying the concepts that they learn in lecture. Our findings tells us that there is a gap between what the TAs think they need to give as help to the students and what the students tend to expect from their TAs. We also discuss the implications of our findings and possible future work. / Master of Science

Decreasing enrollments, lower rates of student retention and changes in the learning styles of today's students are all issues that the Computer Science (CS) academic community is currently facing. As a result, CS educators are being challenged to find the right blend of technology and pedagogy for their curriculum in order to help students persist through the major and produce strong graduates. Visual technologies are being explored as a way to present difficult programming concepts in a manner that is easier to visualize and simpler to use. Visual technologies can make learning programming easier by minimizing the syntax of the programming language being used and providing visual feedback to the students to aid in conceptualization of the programming constructs. The goal was to improve student retention and performance by incorporating visual technologies in the introductory programming course, CS1, at East Tennessee State University (ETSU). The ADDIE approach to instructional design was used to develop and implement a curriculum that incorporated visual technologies in CS1 at ETSU. Subsequently, quasi-experimental research methods, using the Post-Test Only Nonequivalent Groups Design approach, were used to perform assessment on the effects of the revised curriculum on student performance in the course and retention in the major as compared to student performance and retention as measured prior to the course redesign. The results of the study indicate a positive impact on student performance in CS1 and student retention in the major as a result of the use of two types of visual technologies in CS1 at ETSU. Visual technologies supporting algorithm development, such as RAPTOR, had a positive impact on student performance in the area of problem solving and algorithm development as well as the use of decision and repetition constructs in programming. Visual technologies supporting program development, such as Alice, had a positive impact on student performance in the area of object-oriented programming concepts such as objects and classes. The combination of these two types of visual technologies showed evidence of improvement among student performance as a whole in the course and slight improvement in student persistence in the major.

Retention in Computer Science undergraduate education, particularly of underrepresented groups, continues to be a growing challenge. A theme shared by much of the research literature into why this is so is one of a distancing in the relationship between Computer Science professors and students [39, 40, 45]. How then, can we begin to lessen that distance, and build stronger connections between these groups in an era of growing class sizes and technology replacing human interaction? This work presents BitFit, an online programming practice and learning tool, to describe an approach to using the telemetry made possible from deploying this or similar tools in introductory programming courses to improve the quality of instruction, and the students' course experiences. BitFit gathers interaction data as students use the tool to actively engage with course material. In this thesis we first explore what kind of quantitative data can be used to help professors gain insights into how students might be faring in their courses, moving the method of instruction towards a data- and student-driven model. Secondly, we demonstrate the capacity of the telemetry to aid professors in more precisely identifying students at risk of failure in their courses. Our goal is to reveal possible reasons these students would be considered at-risk at an early enough point in the course to make interventions possible. Finally, we show how the use of tools such as BitFit within introductory programming courses could positively impact the student experience. Through a preliminary qualitative assessment, we seek to address impact on confidence, metacognition, and the ability for an individual to envision success in Computer Science. When used together within an all-encompassing approach aimed at improving retention in Computer Science, tools such as BitFit can move towards improving the quality of instruction and the students' experience by helping to build stronger connections rooted in empathy between professors and students. / Graduate / 0710 / 0984 / alrusso@uvic.ca

In our modern time, age of education is decreasing day by day. People have started tolearn more advanced things at earlier ages. This fact is also true for children. They arelearning more advanced thing now because they are facing new technology in everyaspect of life. Today, one of the most popular subject is computer programming so it is also one ofthe most popular technologies to investigate, inevitably. One reason to such popularity isthat computer programming is very important in every field of life or business and itseems that this importance will improve with time. Certain levels of logic and synthesisare needed for programming. It is crucial to improve these skills. This master thesis tries to improve and tame the programming abilities of childrenand strengthen the knowledge about the basic concepts of mathematics and physics,which are related to the computer science by creating simple computer games usingGreenfoot Framework. In this project, tutorials like approach was used. Designs of the games was studied astutorials and at the end of the last tutorial, two tests and a survey were applied. According to the results, purpose about improving and taming the programmingabilities of children is achieved. For the other purposes, these are increases around 8%and 16%. Since they are not dramatic increases and the target number is 6 I can not sayclearly that these purposes are also achieved.

Computing has become an integral part of modern America. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between 2008 and 2018, the United States will have 1.4 million job openings in computing fields [1]. Since the early 2000's (just after the "dot com bust"), the number of students enrolled in computing majors (Computer Science, Computer Engineering, etc.) dropped precipitously by over 50%, only starting to rise again in 2009 [2]. One way to rectify to this gap between demand and supply is to start training students in computational thinking during high school. While the Computer Science Advanced Placement AB test has been retired, a new AP test called "CS Principles" has been added to the suite of tests [3], highlighting the importance of computing to a modern education. Not only will we need more computing professionals, people in other professions will need to have computing skills. We propose in this thesis a comparison of two computing platforms. Scratch is a well-proven platform that teaches core programming concepts through a graphical programming interface. Arduino boards are open-source microcontrollers with an accompanying development environment and C-like language. We develop a parallel curriculum in Scratch and Arduino and compare the two. While we are unable to draw conclusive results from our quantitative study, from our qualitative research we see that Arduino is unsuitable for teaching core programming concepts to computing novices.

The challenges of learning programming have been revealed in studies for decades. Many of the difficulties and misconceptions derive from, or go unassisted by, the syntax and semantics of the programming language used in introductory (CS1) courses. Despite the plethora of empirical data available, the designs of common general-purpose languages have arguably not been based on such data, possibly being one explanation to why novices continue to struggle. Through a literature review, this article first reviews what languages are commonly used in CS1 courses, studies on difficulties and misconceptions held by novices, and other factors that can be exploited in the design of more suitable introductory languages. Thereafter, a new text-based general-purpose programming language called Frendli is introduced, as well as the justifications for design decisions based on the findings presented. The language is intended for use in the beginning stages of introductory courses. The literature review revealed that novices often struggle with understanding fundamental concepts such as function parameters, return values, the need for variable declarations, and the order of execution. It also demonstrated that several syntactic and semantic design features of both C-style languages like Java and syntactically simpler ones like Python are problematic for novices. The author would argue that a language used for teaching programming should intuitively convey universal programming concepts through its syntax, minimize interference and ambiguity of syntax, and have syntactic and semantic consistency. Designing languages based on studies on novices can hopefully assist students in their learning and instructors in their teaching.

Microworlds are visual, 2D grid-based worlds with programmable actors that help ease students into programming. Microworlds have been used as a pedagogical tool for teaching students to program in an object-oriented paradigm for several years now. With the popularity of Android smart phones, creating a pedagogical microworld for Android can help students learn not just Java, OO and event-driven concepts, but also learn to use the Android framework to create concrete, real-world applications. This thesis presents Sofia.Micro, an Android-based pedagogical microworld framework that not only allows Greenfoot-style microworld programs to run on Android, but also adds additional functionalities to microworlds that have not been previously explored, such as built-in shape and physics support, event-driven programming in a microworld context, and allowing for both Greenfoot-style actors and Karel-style actors in the same world. / Master of Science

The subject of computer programming is highly practical and it is crucial that beginners participate in hands-on experimentation as part of the learning process. Unfortunately, many first year engineering students that are new to this discipline are often intimidated by the material and unmotivated to review or practice the concepts on their own. The purpose of this study is to measure the success of using a cooperative and competitive video game as a pedagogical tool in software engineering education. The video game that was developed for this research is called Space Race and it harnesses the power of group discussion to encourage students to share their individual understandings of basic programming concepts. This dissemination of knowledge within groups was able to teach many students new concepts that they did not understand previously.At least 67% of the students stated that the game motivates them to review course material. The game was wellreceived with at least 82% of the students that played Space Race agreeing that they would recommend that others also learn basic programming concepts with this game. Although the game does not directly teach students new concepts, it allows the instructors to identify what concepts students struggle with. Space Race encourages students to ask the instructor questions when they do not understand. In some cases, game participants outperform nonparticipants on course exams. On the final course exam, all of the statistically significant (p<0:05) comparisons (42% of the relevant questions) showed a performance improvement of game participants, with a maximum grade improvement of 41%. The findings also suggest that some students can retain the knowledge obtained from Space Race for at least 7 weeks. The results of this study provide strong evidence that a video game can be a successful pedagogical tool for software engineering education. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

An increasingly evident trend within higher education is the transition to online settings and the emergence of new online learning initiatives. This study evaluates an online learning environment which incorporates question-based learning.  Previous research has shown that question-based learning accelerates student learning. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect that question-based learning has on self-assessed student confidence in programming, but also on  the relation between their confidence and learning outcomes.  The latter can be used to measure consistency in self-assessments. Learning outcomes were estimated based on student quiz scores. A gender perspective was also included in the analysis of confidence and learning outcomes.  Data on confidence and quiz scores was gathered from 210 students in an introductory programming course between the years of 2018 and 2021. The first two course offerings were given before a question-based learning design was introduced and the following four included a question-based learning approach. This enabled a case-control study, comparing the two learning designs. To analyze the data set, two statistical analysis methods were conducted: multiple linear regression and  correlation analysis. The results suggested that the presence of question-based learning design increases correlation between quiz scores and confidence. This indicates that students are more consistent in their self-assessment of confidence with regards to their quiz scores when question-based learning is used. It was also shown that question-based learning design increased students’ confidence in programming. Another finding was that male students reported greater confidence than female students, but the correlation between quiz scores and confidence did not differ significantly between the genders. / En alltmer tydlig trend inom högre utbildning är dess  förflyttning till digitala rum samt uppkomsten av nya digitala  utbildningsinitiativ. Den här studien har genomförts på en  digital lärandemiljö som inkorporerar frågebaserat lärande.  Tidigare forskning har visat att frågebaserat lärande påskyndar  inlärning. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka effekten  som frågebaserat lärande har på studenters självförtroende i  programmering, men också på relationen mellan deras  självförtroende och kunskapsnivå. Den senare kan ses som ett  mått på hur konsekventa de är i sina självskattningar.  Kunskapsnivå estimerades med utgångspunkt i studenters  quiz-resultat. Ett genusperspektiv inkluderades också i analysen  av självförtroende och kunskapsnivå.  Data gällande självförtroende och quiz-resultat samlades in från  210 studenter i en introduktionskurs i programmering mellan  åren 2018 och 2021. De två första kursomgångarna gavs innan  frågebaserat lärande var introducerat och de påföljande fyra  hade frågebaserat lärande implementerat. Detta möjliggjorde en  fall-kontrollstudie för jämförelse mellan de två typerna av  lärande. Datasetet analyserades med två statistiska analyser:  multipel linjär regression och korrelationsanalys. Resultatet  antyder att närvaro av frågebaserat lärande ökar korrelationen  mellan quiz-resultat och självförtroende. Detta indikerar att  studenterna är mer konsekventa i sina skattningar av  självförtroende med avseende på deras quiz-resultat när  frågebaserat lärande används. Det visades också att frågebaserat  lärande ökade studenternas självförtroende inom  programmering. Vidare rapporterade män högre självförtroende  än kvinnor, men korrelationen mellan quiz-resultat och  självförtroende skilde sig inte signifikant mellan könen.

abstract: Introductory programming courses, also known as CS1, have a specific set of expected outcomes related to the learning of the most basic and essential computational concepts in computer science (CS). However, two of the most often heard complaints in such courses are that (1) they are divorced from the reality of application and (2) they make the learning of the basic concepts tedious. The concepts introduced in CS1 courses are highly abstract and not easily comprehensible. In general, the difficulty is intrinsic to the field of computing, often described as "too mathematical or too abstract." This dissertation presents a small-scale mixed method study conducted during the fall 2009 semester of CS1 courses at Arizona State University. This study explored and assessed students' comprehension of three core computational concepts - abstraction, arrays of objects, and inheritance - in both algorithm design and problem solving. Through this investigation students' profiles were categorized based on their scores and based on their mistakes categorized into instances of five computational thinking concepts: abstraction, algorithm, scalability, linguistics, and reasoning. It was shown that even though the notion of computational thinking is not explicit in the curriculum, participants possessed and/or developed this skill through the learning and application of the CS1 core concepts. Furthermore, problem-solving experiences had a direct impact on participants' knowledge skills, explanation skills, and confidence. Implications for teaching CS1 and for future research are also considered. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2011