While research has shown that students' epistemic beliefs can be a strong predictor of their academic performance, cognitive abilities, or self-efficacy, studies of this topic in computer education are rare. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, it aimed to validate a newly developed questionnaire for measuring students' epistemic beliefs…

Background: Computational thinking is derived from arguments that the underlying practices in computer science augment problem-solving. Most studies investigated computational thinking development as a function of learners' factors, instructional strategies and learning environment. However, the influence of the wider community such as educational…

Computationally intensive science (CIS)-related disciplines and careers are predicted to be among the cutting-edge fields and high-demand jobs. Such disciplines and careers demand expertise in both traditional scientific knowledge and computer science (CS)-related understanding and skills. Preparing educational systems for developing interest and…

Computer programming is becoming an essential skill for young students regardless of their education or career goals. Therefore, for students to develop and for educators and researchers to accurately measure self-efficacy in and value for programming is important. Although student motivation in subject matter can be measured using self-report…

The purpose of this research is to examine Computational Thinking (CT) skills, Computer Programming Self-Efficacy (CPSE), and Computer Programming Attitude (CPA) of middle school students who took the Information Technologies & Software (IT&S) courses and those who did not, and make various analyses according to the relationships between…

This dissertation conducted a science classroom intervention using two instructional approaches, computational modeling and paper-based pictorial modeling, in the context of food webs. A series of research papers were written on the impact of the intervention on students' attitudes and learning, and on teachers via professional development and…

For girls there is a distinct loss in interest, lack of confidence, and decline in positive attitudes toward STEM subject areas that begins early on in their academic experience and increases with age. According to the National Academy of Engineering, students need to begin associating the possibilities in STEM fields with the need for creativity…

Learning to program is difficult for novices, even for those undergraduates who have majored in computer science. The study described in this paper has investigated the effects of game strategy and preference-matching on novice learners' flow experience and performance in learning to program using an experiential gaming activity. One hundred and…

The Second International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM2009) was held at the University of Cordoba, Spain, on July 1-3, 2009. EDM brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large data sets to answer educational research questions. The increase in instrumented…