Although previous research has provided some insights into the effects of block-based and text-based programming modalities, there is a dearth of a detailed, multi-dimensional analysis of the transition process from different introductory programming modalities to professional programming learning. This study employed a quasi-experimental design…

Background and Context: Computational thinking (CT) is a critical part of computing education in middle school. The existing practices of collaboration and collaborative design activities at this education level pairs well with CT practices, but this interaction has previously been under-explored in the existing literature. Objective: In this…

Attention to programming education from K-12 to higher education has been growing with the aim of fostering students' programming ability. This ability involves employing appropriate algorithms and computer codes to solve problems and can be enhanced through practical learning. However, in a formal educational setting, it is challenging to provide…

The effective teaching of the concept of programming, where critical thinking is an important factor, is not so easy in secondary education. New teaching approaches, including, game-based learning, may provide a solution due to their inclusion of more fun and diverse activities but they still lack the active participation of the students in the…

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…

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…

A small group of interested upper secondary education students participated in a workshop where they created a particle-based physics engine and used the engine to implement a hanging cloth simulation and a two-dimensional heat diffusion model of their own creation. During the implementation of their models, learning opportunities present…

The main aim of the presented research was to examine the interaction between student's gender and achievements in learning concepts of electricity via STEAM integrated approach utilizing Scratch. This research was aimed to determine the gender disparity for lower-secondary school students in learning about the concepts of electricity.…

RoblockLLy is an educational robotics simulator designed for primary and secondary school students, whose goal is to increase their interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In the particular case of computer science, it allows developing computational thinking skills. It has been designed with ease of use in mind. This free…

This study explores the role of socially shared regulation on computational thinking performance in cooperative learning. Ninety-four middle school students from China aged between 16 and 18 participated in this study. Forty-six students were in the experimental group, and 48 students were in the control group. Students in the experimental group…

The paper presents research that aims to expose students' understanding of the "this" reference in object-oriented programming. The study was conducted with high school students (N = 86) and college engineering students (N = 77). Conceptualization of "this" reflects an understanding of objects in general and involves aspects of…

This study investigated the impact of problematization-oriented scaffolding and structuring-oriented scaffolding, incorporated within instructional videos, on students' computational thinking and their performance in programming education. We recruited 86 participants from three senior classes at a high school. Each of the three classes was…

Given the increasing needs of employees with computational skills, understanding the core competencies of K-12 computer science (CS) education is vital. This phenomenological research aims to identify critical factors of CS education in K-12 schools from the perspectives and visions of CS faculties in higher education and teachers in K-12 schools.…

The purpose of this research project was to design, deliver, and informally assess the content and methodology of an introductory online course for the educators of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students (N=20) that focused on the block-based coding language, Scratch. Prior work by The Playful Learning Lab examined various STEM resources and their…

This article builds on prior work that aims to measure computational learning (CL) during middle school. Since game computational sophistication (GCS) has been used as a proxy for a student's engagement in CL we build on their model to more completely describe the relationship between different types of building blocks of computer games and GCS.…