Debugging is essential for identifying and rectifying errors in programming, yet time constraints and students' trivialization of errors often hinder progress. This study examines differences in debugging challenges and strategies among students with varying computational thinking (CT) competencies using weekly coding journals from an online…

Source code plagiarism is a common occurrence in undergraduate computer science education. Many source code plagiarism detection tools have been proposed to address this problem. However, most of these tools only measure the similarity between assignment submissions, and do not actually identify which are suspicious of plagiarism. This work…

Especially in large courses, feedback is often given only on the final results; less attention is paid to the programming process. Today, however, some programming environments, e.g., Thonny, log activities during programming and have the functionality of replaying the programming process. This information can be used to provide feedback, and this…

Concurrency is a complex to learn topic that is becoming more and more relevant, such that many undergraduate Computer Science curricula are introducing it in introductory programming courses. This paper investigates the combined use of Sonic Pi and Team-Based Learning to mitigate the difficulties in early exposure to concurrency. Sonic Pi, a…

This research investigates the comparative effectiveness of the ChatGPT and the Google search engine in facilitating the self-learning of JavaScript functions among undergraduate open and distance learning students. The study employed a quasi-experimental post-test control group design to analyze the variables of disorientation, satisfaction,…

Background and Context: automated feedback for programming assignments has great potential in promoting just-in-time learning, but there has been little work investigating the design of feedback in this context. Objective: to investigate the impacts of different designs of automated feedback on student learning at a fine-grained level, and how…

Software security is inevitably dependent on developers' ability to to design and implement software without security bugs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, developers often fail to do this. Our goal is to understand this from a usability perspective, identifying how we might best train developers and equip them with the right software tools. To this end,…

The main goal of the current study is to develop a reliable instrument to measure programming anxiety in university students. A pool of 33 items based on extensive literature review and experts' opinions were created by researchers. The draft scale comprised three factors applied to 392 university students from two different universities in Turkey…

Knowledge tracing (KT) models are a popular approach for predicting students' future performance at practice problems using their prior attempts. Though many innovations have been made in KT, most models including the state-of-the-art Deep KT (DKT) mainly leverage each student's response either as correct or incorrect, ignoring its content. In…

A teaching approach plays an important role in teaching and learning process of an introductory programming (IP) course. The teaching approach should focus on different programming skills required by novice programmers. In this study, we introduced the teaching and learning approach based on an ADRI (Approach, Deployment, Result, Improvement)…

The notion of algorithm may be perceived in different levels of abstraction. In the lower levels it is an operational set of instructions. In higher levels it may be viewed as an object with properties, solving a problem with characteristics. Novices mostly relate to the lower levels. Yet, higher levels are very relevant for them as well. We…

Learning computer programming is a challenging process. Among the current approaches for overcoming this challenge, visual programming languages (VPLs), such as Scratch, have shown very promising results for beginners. Interestingly, some higher education institutions have started to use VPLs to introduce basic programming concepts, mainly in CS1…

Adding gaming elements to conventional teaching methodologies has gained a lot of attention because of its ability to incorporate an engaging, motivating, and fun-based environment. As a result, learners' dedication and performance are also better. Unfortunately, current gamification models do not consider the effect of different levels of…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate students' engagement in computational thinking (CT) and programming with MATLAB when solving a mathematical task in a programming course at the undergraduate level. The data collection method is participant observation of three groups of three students presented with a mathematical task to solve. The…

Aim/Purpose: This research aims to describe layering of career-like experiences over existing curriculum to improve perceived educational value. Background: Feedback from students and regional businesses showed a clear need to increase student's exposure to career-like software development projects. The initial goal was to develop an…