Background and Context: Students learning the C programming language struggle to debug, and to understand the runtime behaviour of, their programs. Objective: We examine a tool that combines several novice-focused error detection, program visualization, and debugging techniques, to investigate which features students use in real study sessions,…

Teachers deal with plagiarism on a regular basis, so they try to prevent and detect plagiarism, a task that is complicated by the large size of some classes. Students who cheat often try to hide their plagiarism (obfuscate), and many different similarity detection engines (often called plagiarism detection tools) have been built to help teachers.…

Background and Context: In spite of the decades spent developing software visualization (SV), doubts still remain regarding their effectiveness. Furthermore, student engagement plays an important role in improving SV effectiveness as it is correlated with many positive academic outcomes. It has been shown that the existing SV has failed to engage…

Augmented Reality (AR) technology allows the inclusion of virtual elements on a vision of actual physical environment for the creation of a mixed reality in real time. This kind of technology can be used in educational settings. However, the current AR authoring tools present several drawbacks, such as, the lack of a mechanism for tracking the…

In this article, we present the characteristics and the design of a modular personalized multimedia testing tool based fully on XML learning specifications. Personalization is based on the characteristics of the individual learners, thus the testing paths are tailored to their needs and goals. The system maintains learner profiles rich in content…

This study discusses and presents various strategies employed by novice programmers concerning exception handling. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: we provide an analysis tool to measure the level of assimilation of exception handling mechanism; we present and analyse strategies to handle exceptions; we present and analyse…

The semantic web brings a new opportunity for efficient information organization and search. To meet the special requirements of the educational field, this paper proposes an intelligent search engine enabled by educational semantic support service, where three kinds of searches are integrated into Educational Information Intelligent Search (EIIS)…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered instructional strategy in which students solve problems and reflect on their experiences. Different domains need different approaches in the design of PBL systems. Therefore, we present one case study in this article: A Java Programming PBL. The application is developed as an additional module for…

In this paper, we present a framework for the development of collaborative design games that can be employed in participatory design sessions with students for the design of educational applications. The framework is inspired by idea generation theory and the design games literature, and guides the development of board games which, through the use…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of reflective thinking effects in the process of designing software on students' learning performances. The study contends that reflective thinking is a useful teaching strategy to improve learning performance among lower achieving students. Participants were students from two groups: Higher…

Although previous research has demonstrated learning benefits for both instructors and students in the web-based collaborative learning environments, one of them major difficulties is the lack of a practical approach to assist teachers in evaluating the knowledge contribution of learners. A novel method of merging multi-modes of assessment and…

As part of the research carried out at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Center for Information Technology and Society (CITS), the Paper Authentication and Integrity Research (PAIR) project was launched. We began by investigating how one recent technology affected student learning outcomes. One aspect of this research was to study the…

This article reports on an experiment undertaken in order to evaluate the effect of a program visualization tool for helping students to better understand the dynamics of object-oriented programs. The concrete tool used was BlueJ's debugger and object inspector. The study was done as a control-group experiment in an introductory programming…

Over the last decade, the Intelligent Computer Tutoring Group (ICTG) has implemented many successful constraint-based Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) in a variety of instructional domains. Our tutors have proven their effectiveness not only in controlled lab studies but also in real classrooms, and some of them have been commercialized.…

Mobile computing facilities may provide many assets to the educational process. Mobile technology provides software access from anywhere and at any time, as well as computer equipment independence. The need for time and place independence is even greater for medical instructors and medical students. Medical instructors are usually doctors that…