For most beginners, learning computer programming is a complex undertaking. Demotivation and learned helplessness have been widely reported. In addition to the subject's complexity, low in-class involvement has been linked to poor student performance. This work introduces a novel instructional technique called Student-Driven Probe Instruction…

Programming is an essential skill that many computing students are expected to master. However, programming can be difficult to learn. Successfully interpreting compiler error messages (CEMs) is crucial for correcting errors and progressing toward success in programming. Yet these messages are often difficult to understand and pose a barrier to…

This study investigates the delivery of the "Hour of Code" tutorials to college students. The college students who participated in this study were surveyed about their opinion of the Hour of Code. First, the students' comments were discussed. Next, a content analysis of the offered tutorials highlights their reliance on visual…

Teaching programming concepts to enhance students' problem solving and computational thinking skills is a challenging task, especially when students enter college with little to no preparation, or they lack the interest or capacity for programming. Online platforms that serve as automated practice and assessment systems have been offered as…

The paper elaborates on experiences and lessons learned from the course on object-oriented analyses and design at the Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad. The course on OOAD is taught to students of computer science and to the students of mathematical programme. Conclusions made in this paper are based on results of students' assignments as well as…

The problem of Computer Science students' cheating in their homework assignments so far has been handled mainly through administrative punishment of the cheaters. The success of such an approach depends to a large degree on the ability of the instructor to recognize the fact of cheating, which is a complicated task. With a large number of students…

All curricula for any given academic discipline evolves over time. This is also true for the Information Systems (IS) model curriculum. Curriculum evolution is driven by several factors, such as changes in technologies, industry shifts to meet customer needs, and perceived student deficiencies. One outcome of such factors has been a change in the…

Contribution: Findings are provided from an initial survey to evaluate the magnitude of the recursion problem from the student point of view. Background: A major difficulty that programming students must overcome--the learning of recursion--has been addressed by many authors, using various approaches, but none have considered how students perceive…

This paper analyzes the results of a diagnostic study carried out with second year students of the computational sciences majors at University of Oriente, Cuba, to determine the limitations that they present in computational algorithmization. An exploratory research was developed using quantitative and qualitative methods. The results allowed…

This paper explores the educational benefits of introducing the aspect-oriented programming paradigm into a programming course in a study on a sample of 75 undergraduate software engineering students. It discusses how using the aspect-oriented paradigm, in addition to the object-oriented programming paradigm, affects students' programs, their exam…

This paper examines the impact of a novel assessment technique that has been used to improve the feedback given to second year Computer Science students at the University of Nottingham. Criteria for effective, high quality feedback are discussed. An automated marking system (The Marker's Apprentice--TMA) produces instant feedback in synergy with…

Teaching game development has become an accepted methodology for introducing programming concepts and capturing the interest of beginning computer science and information technology (IT) students. This study, conducted over three consecutive semesters, explores game development using a gaming engine, rather than a traditional programming language,…

Teaching advanced programming can be a challenge, especially when the students are pursuing different majors with diverse analytical and problem-solving capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of using a particular problem as a vehicle for imparting a broad set of programming concepts and problem-solving techniques. We…

The results presented in this paper contribute to research on two different areas of teaching methods: distributed pair programming (DPP) and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). An evaluation study of a DPP system that supports collaboration scripts was conducted over one semester of a computer science course. Seventy-four students…

This descriptive study determined which of the sources of errors would predict the errors committed by novice Java programmers. Descriptive statistics revealed that the respondents perceived that they committed the identified eighteen errors infrequently. Thought error was perceived to be the main source of error during the laboratory programming…