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…

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and its increasing societal impacts have turned many computing educators' focus toward early education in machine learning (ML). Limited options for educational tools for teaching novice learners about the mechanisms of ML and data-driven systems presents a recognized challenge in K-12 computing…

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,…

Learning computer science (CS) is increasingly becoming a necessary component of K-12 education, but in most cases, teachers do not have either the essential knowledge to teach or a curriculum to follow. In this article, we analyze the outcomes from a yearlong, blended professional development (PD) program to teach teachers game design and coding…

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…

Debugging (or troubleshooting) provides a rich context to foster problem-solving. Yet, while we know much about some problems and strategies that novices face in programming on-screen, we know far less about debugging and troubleshooting in the context of physical computing, where coding issues may overlap with materially embedded problems. In…

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…

The research objectives were to 1) study the current conditions, problems, and good practices regarding teaching and learning 2) develop a blended instructional model using problem-based learning with graphic organizers to enhance systems thinking skills in computational science for students in lower secondary school and 3) study the results of…

In this article, the relatively new phenomenon of integrating coding and computer science (CS) related concepts and skills into the K-8 grades is analysed through a comparative analysis of related provincial curriculum initiatives in Canada. First, provincial K-8 curricula that include coding and CS related concepts and skills are identified, as…

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…

Purpose: The lecture method has been compared with teaching methods such as flip learning, cooperative learning and simulations to establish which holds the key to students' understanding of concepts. What is bereft in the education literature is its comparative efficiency with the culturo-techno contextual approach (CTCA) in the teaching of…