Contributions: This article presents a large-scale study which investigates students' reaction to game-based learning as part of programming courses. The study focuses on knowledge acquisition, learner experience, and game usability. Background: Despite the rapid growth of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector, the lack of…

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…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for programming learning based on information tutoring feedback (ITF) to provide real-time guidance and feedback to self-directed learners during programming problem-solving and to improve learners' computational thinking. Design/methodology/approach: By…

Research has demonstrated that people generally think both their knowledge and performance levels are greater than they are. Although several studies have suggested that knowledge and progress visualization offered by open learner modeling (OLM) technology might influence students' self-awareness in a positive way, insufficient evidence exists to…

Aim/Purpose: Multi-threaded software design is considered to be difficult, especially to novice programmers. In this study, we explored how students cope with a task that its solution requires a multi-threaded architecture to achieve optimal runtime. Background: An efficient exploit of multicore processors architecture requires computer programs…

In this study, the aim is to evaluate the problem-solving processes in the understanding of problems and to determine and provide strategies, demonstration, expression and problem-writing dimensions in a numerical analysis course for engineering students. The quantitative data and qualitative data were interpreted using exploratory sequential…

Low performance of nontechnical engineering students in programming courses is a problem that remains unsolved. Over the years, many authors have tried to identify the multiple causes for that failure, but there is unanimity on the fact that motivation is a key factor for the acquisition of knowledge by students. To better understand motivation, a…

Pair Programming has been shown to increase productivity and code quality not only in professional software development but also in the context of programming education. The provision of broadband Internet access gave rise to Distributed Pair Programming (DPP) enabling two programmers to collaborate remotely. To gain insight into the benefits of…

Creating explanations is an important process for students, not only to make connections between novel information and background knowledge, but also to be able to communicate their understanding of any given topic. This article explores students' explanations in the context of computational science and engineering, an important interdisciplinary…

Difficulties in learning computer programming for novices is a subject of abundant scientific literature. These difficulties seem to be accentuated in students whose academic choice is not computation, like architecture students. However, they need to study programming, since it is part of the new academic curricula. The results presented here are…

Competitive game-based learning has been widely discussed in terms of its positive and negative impacts on learners' learning effectiveness and learning behavior. Although different types of games require different kinds of knowledge to accomplish the task via competition, few studies have considered that knowledge types, such as procedural…

Perspectives of students on what constitutes source-code plagiarism may differ based on their educational background. Surveys have been conducted with home students undertaking computing and joint computing subject degrees at higher education institutions throughout the UK, China, and South Cyprus, and a total of 984 responses have been…

The aim of this study was to explore Taiwanese college students' conceptions of and approaches to learning computer science and then explore the relationships between the two. Two surveys, Conceptions of Learning Computer Science (COLCS) and Approaches to Learning Computer Science (ALCS), were administered to 421 college students majoring in…

A group of first-semester engineering students participated in a game design course. The aim of the course was to learn how to design computer games and programming skills by creating their own games, thereby applying their game-playing experiences to gain knowledge about game design. The aim was for students to develop a more critically…

Although conventional student assessments are extremely convenient for calculating student scores, they do not conceptualize how students organize their knowledge. Therefore, teachers and students rarely understand how to improve their future learning progress. The limitations of conventional testing methods indicate the importance of accurately…