The integration of visual programming in early formal education has been found to promote computational thinking of students. Teachers' intuitive perspectives about optimal learning processes -- "folk psychology" -- impact their perspectives about teaching "folk pedagogy" and play a significant role in integrating educational…

The combination of Open Sim and Scratch4OS can be a worthwhile innovation for introductory programming courses, using a Community of Inquiry (CoI) model as a theoretical instructional design framework. This empirical study had a threefold purpose to present: (a) an instructional design framework for the beneficial formalization of a virtual…

Research on the effectiveness of introductory programming environments often relies on post-test measures and attitudinal surveys to support its claims; but such instruments lack the ability to identify any explanatory mechanisms that can account for the results. This paper reports on a study designed to address this issue. Using Noss and Hoyles'…

While pedagogical and technological affordances of three-dimensional (3D) multiuser virtual worlds in various educational disciplines are largely well-known, a study about their effect on high school students' engagement in introductory programming courses is still lacking. This case study presents students' opinions about their participation in a…

This paper presents both the design and the pilot formative evaluation study of a computer-based problem-solving environment (named LECGO: Learning Environment for programming using C using Geometrical Objects) for the learning of computer programming using C by beginners. In its design, constructivist and social learning theories were taken into…