Data science programming presents many challenges for programmers entering the field. Roughly, data science programming can be broken up into several activities: data wrangling, analysis, modeling, or visualization. Data wrangling is an important first step that involves cleaning and shaping tabular data--or dataframes--into a form amenable for…

At an unrivaled and enduring pace, computing has transformed the world, resulting in demand for a universal fourth foundation beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic: computational thinking (CT). Despite increasingly widespread acceptance of CT as a crucial competency for all, transforming education systems accordingly has proven complex. The…

The employment rate of software developers has risen significantly over the last 30 years. As a result, more students are considering computer science as a potential career path. Over the last 15 years, introductory programming course (CS1) enrollment has been increasing at a much faster rate than the increase in the number of CS faculty, with no…

In computer science education, introductory computer programming courses tend to be the most challenging for novices, with higher dropout rates than other computer science courses. Recruitment and retention of students in computer science fields is an important area of focus in computer science education research, and previous research has…

Novice programmers need well-designed instruction and assessment informed by research and critical perspectives to conquer the historical challenges associated with completing introductory computer programming courses successfully. These issues include high dropout and failure rates, the struggle to acquire and retain basic programming knowledge,…

Despite high scores and abilities, girls lose interest in science and math throughout middle school. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in the computer science research field will grow 19% by 2026; however, only 18% of the bachelor's degrees in computer science are earned by women in the United States (ComputerScience.org, 2021).…

Collaborative learning has long been investigated for its benefits to learners. Prior research indicates that collaboration may help students develop more sophisticated arguments and learn more effectively. While a great deal of research has been completed on how elementary students collaborate, there has been little research on how they…

Distributed self-assessments and reflections empower learners to take the lead on their knowledge gaining evaluation. Both provide essential elements for practice and self-regulation in learning settings. Nowadays, many sources for practice opportunities are made available to the learners, especially in the Computer Science (CS) and programming…

With the expansion of computer science (CS) education, CS teachers in K-12 schools should be cognizant of student misconceptions and be prepared to help students establish accurate understanding of computer science and programming. This exploratory design-based research (DBR) study implemented a data-driven approach to identify secondary school…

The fundamentals of computer science are increasingly important to consider as critical educational and occupational competencies, as evidenced by the rapid growth of computing capabilities and the proliferation of the Internet in the 21st century, combined with reimagined national education standards. Despite this technological and social…

My dissertation is situated in the field of computer science education research, specifically, the learning and teaching of programming. This is a critical area to be studied, since, primarily, learning to program is difficult, but also, the need for programming knowledge and skills is growing, now more than ever. This research is particularly…

Hackathons, the time-bound collaborative project-based competitions increasingly popular with undergraduate CS students, are both transformative and problematic. On one hand, they are unique opportunities to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world, interest driven projects that celebrate risk taking, collaboration, and playfulness. On…

Students' struggles with algebra are well documented. Prior to the introduction of functions, mathematics is typically focused on applying a set of arithmetic operations to compute an answer. The introduction of functions, however, marks the point at which mathematics begins to focus on building up abstractions as a way to solve complex problems.…

This study is part of a larger design study that iteratively improves a robotics programming curriculum as well as a computational thinking (CT) instrument. Its focus was majorly on CT assessment and particularly on an online CT instrument with logging functionality that can store a student's problem-solving process by recording interactions…

Constraint satisfaction problems are a powerful way to abstract and represent academic and real-world problems from both artificial intelligence and operations research. A constraint satisfaction problem is typically addressed by a sequential constraint solver running on a single processor. Rather than construct a new, parallel solver, this work…