Many middle school students come to Computer Science (CS) classes without any previous CS instruction or any Computational Thinking (CT) skills that are needed to be successful. To overcome this, many curriculums and programming environments have been used to engage students and to instill a love of CS. Which curriculum should be used to develop…

Background: Robot programming can simultaneously cultivate learners' computational thinking (CT) and spatial thinking (ST). However, there is a noticeable gap in research focusing on the micro-level development patterns of learners' CT and ST and their interconnections. Objectives: This study aims to uncover the intricate development patterns and…

The goal of this study was to examine how two groups of middle school students' self-efficacy, interest, goal orientation, and prior experience related to evidence of their building upon existing ideas and code in digital artifacts they created using MIT's App Inventor, a computational practice that Brennan and Resnick (2012) identified as…

Computational Thinking (CT) has evolved as an essential competency for K-12 students, and programming practices are recognized as the key way to facilitate CT development. However, most studies of CT development in middle graders have focused on visual programming, lacking evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of Python programming. Therefore,…

Background: Collaborative programming is important and challenging for K12 students. Scaffolding is a vital method to support students' collaborative programming learning. However, conventional scaffolding that does not fade may lead students to become overly dependent, resulting in unsatisfactory programming performance. Objectives: This study…

Examining middle school students' computational identity development, personal, situational variables and programming experiences through the lens of identity may offer an opportunity to explore the dynamic relationship between individual, academic and social influences in computer science and CI. The aim of this study is to examine the variables…

Over the past few decades, advances in computing power and the widespread adoption of the Internet have completely transformed the ways that people obtain information, communicate, educate, and conduct business. Unfortunately, access to technology and to the training required to use technology are not equitably distributed in the United States,…

Middle school students often enter Computer Science (CS) classes without previous CS or Computational Thinking (CT) instruction. This study evaluated how Code.org's block-based programming curriculum affects middle school students' CT skills and attitudes toward CT and CS. Sixteen students participated in the study. This was a mixed methods action…

This study aims to explain the relationships between secondary school students' digital literacy, computer programming self-efficacy and computational thinking self-efficacy. The study group consists of 204 secondary school students. A relational survey model was used in the research method and three different data collection tools were used to…

Computer Science (CS) Unplugged activities are designed to engage students with CS concepts. It is an active learning approach combining physical interaction with visual representation. This research article investigates the impact of CS Unplugged on students' understanding of the bubble sort algorithm. Algorithm visualization, traditionally…

Providing greater access to computer science (CS) education for K-12 students in the United States (U.S.) has increased interest in integrating CS concepts within authentic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) contexts. Physical computing is one method that has demonstrated promising results in other countries (e.g. England)…

As Machine Learning (ML) becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, it is essential to teach ML to young people from an early age including also students from a low socioeconomic status (SES) background. Yet, despite emerging initiatives for ML instruction in K-12, there is limited information available on the learning of students from…

Motivating girls to enroll in computer science (CS) courses is critically important. Stereotypes that girls are less interested than boys in CS may deter girls. Three preregistered experimental studies (N = 1,053) examined causal links between gender-interest stereotypes and middle school students' CS motivation. Experiment 1 showed that…

The purpose of the current study was to explore the effect of modality (constructionist mBlock, Scratch, and Python interventions) on six-grade students' computational thinking, programming attitude, and achievement. The pre-test and post-test quasi-experimental design was used to explore the research questions. The study group consisted of 105…

The current study compared American, Korean, and Indonesian middle and high school students' CS attitudes. Concurrently, this study also examined whether the items in the CS attitudes scale exhibit country and gender measurement biases. We gathered data on CS attitudes from middle and high school students in the US, Korea, and Indonesia. The…