In contrast to the experience of other professional fields, the percentage of women in computer science has decreased substantially in recent decades. This phenomenon is a significant and growing problem in a society where new technologies impact nearly every facet of life, including criminal justice and health care. This study examines whether…

Despite the importance of computer science education and computational thinking, there have been limited examples of computer science education at K-12 classrooms that authentically represents the work of computer scientists, especially programming. One reason is the lack of a measurable definition of computational thinking and a programming…

With ongoing efforts in the United States to further develop the availability of computer science education in the public schools, federal, state, and local educational agencies are increasing efforts to encourage and promote the inclusion of computer science and programming skills in the middle school curriculum (Grover, Pea, & Cooper, 2015).…

The focus on Computer Science Education at the K-12 level has been increasingly highlighted due to today's need for a populace with computational thinking skills, in addition to the expansion of careers related to computing and computer science. Programming helps facilitate students' examination of the nature of a problem and helps students to…

Mathematics is a foundation subject within Computer Science which students continue to find challenging. Technology-enhanced learning pedagogies provide opportunities to improve educational learning outcomes, supporting dialogue and best practice. Research conducted over a three-year period at National College of Ireland's "Introduction to…

The focus of this research project was to examine how problem- based learning (PBL) impacts students' interest and knowledge in computer science (CS) at the elementary level. By focusing on a problem that emphasizes social activism, we hypothesized that PBL CS could increase interest for students. We employed an iterative design-based research…

This article describes an introductory computational thinking (CT) lesson that was implemented into five educational technology classes at a large university in the southern United States. A total of 88 undergraduate and graduate students participated in the lesson. The project was the result of a collaboration between education faculty and a…

This paper explores Computational Thinking (CT) through the experiences and interactions of sixth-grade students as they were engaging in a science lesson utilizing robotics. This robotics unit institutes the shifting from traditional to engaging hands-on activities coupled with CT skills that are exciting, intriguing, and inviting to students.…

Moving among levels of abstraction is an important skill in mathematics and computer science, and students show similar difficulties when applying abstraction in each discipline. While computer science educators have examined ways to explicitly teach students how to consciously navigate levels of abstraction, these ideas have not been explored in…

The popular press is rife with examples of how students in the United States and around the globe are learning to program, make, and tinker. The Hour of Code, maker-education, and similar efforts are advocating that more students be exposed to principles found within computer science. We propose an expansion beyond simply teaching computational…

This paper presents the results of a comparison study between graduate students taking a software security course at an American university and international working professionals taking a version of the same course online through a free massive open online course (MOOC) created in the Google CourseBuilder learning environment. A goal of the study…

Computer science for high school faces many challenging issues. One of these is whether the students possess the appropriate cognitive ability for learning the fundamentals of computer science. Online tests were created based on known cognitive factors and fundamental algorithms and were implemented among the second grade students in the…

Project-based learning and interdisciplinary projects present an opportunity for students to learn both technical skills and other skills which are relevant to their workplace success. This paper presents an assessment of the educational impact of the OpenOrbiter program, a student-run, interdisciplinary CubeSat (a type of small satellite with…

From 2004-2007, the University of Memphis carried out the NSF-funded Tri-P-LETS (Three P Learning Environment for Teachers and Students) project to improve local high-school computer science curricula. The project reached a total of 58 classrooms in eleven high schools emphasizing problem solving skills, programming concepts as opposed to syntax,…

In this study half of 52 sixth graders learned to program in MSWLogo and the other half in Drape. An analysis of students' test scores revealed that Drape (an iconic language) seemed to have a steeper learning curve than MSWLogo (a textual language). However, as students gradually became more familiar with either language, the difference in…