This article reviews literature on worked examples in the context of programming activities. We focus on two types of examples, namely, code-tracing and code-generation, because there is sufficient research on these to warrant a review. We synthesize key results according to themes that emerged from the review. This synthesis aims to provide…

While there have been many calls for teaching ethics and responsible computing, it is unclear how responsible computing instruction and technical learning interact. Some instructors even hesitate to include ethics in their courses, fearing it might distract students from learning technical computing content. An approach called…

In recent years, computing education researchers have investigated the impact of problem context on students' learning and programming performance. This work continues the investigation motivated, in part, by cognitive load theory and educational research in computer science and other disciplines. The results of this study could help inform…

In this article, we leverage ideas from the theory of coevolutionary computation to analyze interactions of students with problems. We introduce the idea of "informatively" easy or hard concepts. Our approach is different from more traditional analyses of problem difficulty such as item analysis in the sense that we consider Pareto…

The subgoal learning framework has improved performance for novice programmers in higher education, but it has only started to be applied and studied in K-12 (primary/secondary). Programming education in K-12 is growing, and many international initiatives are attempting to increase participation, including curricular initiatives like Computer…

The recent integration of visual capabilities into Large Language Models (LLMs) has the potential to play a pivotal role in science and technology education, where visual elements such as diagrams, charts, and tables are commonly used to improve the learning experience. This study investigates the performance of ChatGPT-4 Vision, OpenAI's most…

We investigate conditions in which novices make some reference errors when programming. We asked students from introductory programming courses to perform a simple code-writing task that required constructing references to objects and their attributes. By experimentally manipulating the nature of the attributes in the tasks, from identifying…

Computational Thinking (CT), entailing both domain-general and domain-specific skills, is a competency fundamental to computing education and beyond. However, as a cross-domain competency, appropriate assessment design and method remain equivocal. Indeed, the majority of the existing assessments have a predominant focus on measuring programming…

Summer internships present an opportunity for Computer Science (CS) students to expand and test their skills in "the real world." These multi-faceted experiences call on students to use technical tools and critical thinking in collaboration with others to solve problems. There are many opportunities for learning and growth: which of…

Abstraction is one of the most fundamental ideas in computer science (CS), and as such, according to Bruner, it should be taught spirally, starting as early as possible and revisited at every level of education. However, teaching CS abstraction to novices is a very challenging task, and CS educational research has often demonstrated students'…

It is widely believed that there are educational benefits to making computer games, but there is no systematic review of research on this topic. This article describes a meta-synthesis of research on children designing and programming computer games that investigates the extent to which there is evidence of benefits for computer science learning…

Modern web application development provides an attractive application area for introductory software engineering education, as students have direct experience with the domain and it provides them with the potential to gain practical, real-world skills. Achieving this potential requires the development of competency with a multiple component tech…

This article concludes a longitudinal study with the broader aim to explore learner development as a long-term, social process. One goal has been to inform the endeavours of improving student engagement, retention, as well as under-representation of certain demographics in computing. Students of two computer science-related study programmes…

This article discusses the findings of a survey of nearly 300 computing professionals who are involved in the design and/or development of software across a variety of industries. We report on the surveyed professionals' perceptions of the importance of a range of topics and skills, and the degree to which 55 recent graduates felt that each topic…

Global Software Development (GSD) is currently a strong industry trend. This means that if computer science engineers are to be trained to deal with this model, it is very important to include the topic in software engineering courses, attempting to ensure that students learn about GSD and become familiar with its advantages and challenges.…