Background and Context: Computational thinking (CT) has been increasingly added to K-12 curricula, prompting teachers to grade more and more CT artifacts. This has led to a rise in automated CT assessment tools. Objective: This study examines the scope and characteristics of publications that use machine learning (ML) approaches to assess…

Background and context: Coding and computational thinking are often taught through integrated curricula, despite a paucity of classroom-based research on their effectiveness. Objective: To investigate evidence of learning resulting from cross-curricular coding tasks in middle-school classrooms, and the school environment factors that impact upon…

Background and Context: We explored how learning trajectories (LTs) might be used to design variables instruction. Objective: We aimed to develop an LT for variables and use it to guide curriculum development for fourth graders working in Scratch in an integrated mathematics+CS curriculum. Method: We synthesized learning goals (LGs) and levels of…

This review synthesizes literature on computing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Shulman introduced PCK in the 1980s to describe the amalgam of knowledge teachers draw upon in their work and use of the construct is increasing in the computing education community. From a systematic search of the literature, I identified 19 articles drawn from 9…

Background and context: The variables that researchers measure and how they measure them are central in any area of research, including computing education. Which research questions can be asked and how they are answered depends on measurement. Objective: To summarize the commonly used variables and measurements in computing education and to…

Background and Context: Computational thinking (CT) is considered as a valuable literacy for all students, and its inclusion in compulsory schooling could increase the numbers of underrepresented students who pursue computing-related careers. Computer Science Unplugged (CSU) had success in making computer science (CS) accessible to K-12 students…

While there has been a remarkable interest to make computer science a core K-12 academic subject in the United States, there is a shortage of K-12 computer science teachers to successfully implement computer sciences courses in schools. In order to enhance computer science teacher capacity, training programs have been offered through teacher…

Hundreds of articles have been published on the topics of teaching and learning recursion, yet fewer than 50 of them have published research results. This article surveys the computing education research literature and presents findings on challenges students encounter in learning recursion, mental models students develop as they learn recursion,…

A key challenge of effective teaching is assessing and monitoring the extent to which students have assimilated the material they were taught. Concept mapping is a methodology designed to model what students have learned. In effect, it seeks to produce graphical representations (called concept maps) of the concepts that are important to a given…

This paper reviews the literature related to the learning and teaching of debugging computer programs. Debugging is an important skill that continues to be both difficult for novice programmers to learn and challenging for computer science educators to teach. These challenges persist despite a wealth of important research on the subject dating…