Background: Studies on the effectiveness of block-based environments continue to produce inconsistent results. A strong reason for this is that most studies compare environments that are not equivalent to each other or to the level of learners. Moreover, studies that present evidence of the effectiveness of block-based environments by comparing…

Computer science students often evaluate the behavior of the code they write by running it on specific inputs and studying the outputs, and then apply their comprehension to a more general understanding of the code. While this is a good starting point in the student's career, successful graduates must be able to reason analytically about the code…

Evaluating the quality of students' programs is necessary for better teaching and learning. Although many innovative learning environments for computer science have been introduced, the scarcity of program evaluation frames and tools is a demanding issue in the teaching practice. This study examined the quality of students' Scratch programs by…

Raspberry Pi Pico, based on chip RP2040, is an easy-to-use development microcontroller board that can provide flexible input/output functions and meets the teaching needs of basic electronics to first-year university undergraduates. This article presents our blended laboratory design using Raspberry Pi Pico for the course unit Digital Circuits and…

Introduction to Computer Science is traditionally the first course that all computer science and software engineering majors take. The course introduces many problem-solving techniques which can be challenging for many freshman students. In order to mitigate some of the issues of this course, we, at the Higher Education Institute, introduced a new…

The global shortage of skilled programmers remains a persistent challenge. High dropout rates in introductory programming courses pose a significant obstacle to graduation. Previous studies highlighted learning difficulties in programming students, but their specific weaknesses remained unclear. This gap exists due to the predominant focus on the…

Tinkering is often viewed as arbitrary practice that should be avoided. However, tinkering can be performed as part of a sound reasoning process. In this ethnomethodological study, we investigated tinkering as a reasoning process that construes logical inferences. This is a new asset-based approach that can be applied in computer science…

Computational thinking (CT) is considered a group of problem-solving skills that the next generations are expected to possess. The most efficient way to make them acquire these skills is to incorporate CT into K-12 education. To this end, various education programs have been designed to improve teachers' and prospective teachers' competence in CT.…

Contribution: This article proposes a new theoretical model with a goal to develop future human computational thinking (CT) in foundational computer science (CS) education. The model blends six critical types of thinking, i.e., logical thinking, systems thinking, sustainable thinking, strategic thinking, creative thinking, and responsible thinking…

Computational thinking is the capacity of undertaking a problem-solving process in various disciplines (including STEM, i.e. science, technology, engineering and mathematics) using distinctive techniques that are typical of computer science. It is nowadays considered a fundamental skill for students and citizens, that has the potential to affect…

Difficulties in the learning of computer programming have been a universal problem. One of the main contributors of this problem is due to the teaching material used in guiding the students. Traditional teaching method using books and PowerPoint slides are not effective enough to support the dynamic nature of computer programming. Hence, a more…

Computational thinking (CT) uses concepts that are essential to computing and information science to solve problems, design and evaluate complex systems, and understand human reasoning and behavior. This way of thinking has important implications in computer sciences as well as in almost every other field. Therefore, we contend that CT should be…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate students' engagement in computational thinking (CT) and programming with MATLAB when solving a mathematical task in a programming course at the undergraduate level. The data collection method is participant observation of three groups of three students presented with a mathematical task to solve. The…

This study explores students' cognitive processes while debugging programs by using an eye tracker. Students' eye movements during debugging were recorded by an eye tracker to investigate whether and how high- and low-performance students act differently during debugging. Thirty-eight computer science undergraduates were asked to debug two C…

Subgoal learning, a technique used to break down problem solving into manageable pieces, has been used to promote retention and transfer in procedural domains, such as programming. The primary method of learning subgoals has been passive, and passive learning methods are typically less effective than constructive methods. To promote constructive…