Many middle school students come to Computer Science (CS) classes without any previous CS instruction or any Computational Thinking (CT) skills that are needed to be successful. To overcome this, many curriculums and programming environments have been used to engage students and to instill a love of CS. Which curriculum should be used to develop…

Background: Robot programming can simultaneously cultivate learners' computational thinking (CT) and spatial thinking (ST). However, there is a noticeable gap in research focusing on the micro-level development patterns of learners' CT and ST and their interconnections. Objectives: This study aims to uncover the intricate development patterns and…

Over the past few decades, advances in computing power and the widespread adoption of the Internet have completely transformed the ways that people obtain information, communicate, educate, and conduct business. Unfortunately, access to technology and to the training required to use technology are not equitably distributed in the United States,…

The current study compared American, Korean, and Indonesian middle and high school students' CS attitudes. Concurrently, this study also examined whether the items in the CS attitudes scale exhibit country and gender measurement biases. We gathered data on CS attitudes from middle and high school students in the US, Korea, and Indonesia. The…

Coding is increasingly popular in schools around the world and is often taught by non-specialist teachers as an integrated task with other subject areas. In this article, we explore the relationship between computer science (CS) concepts and students' multimodal expression in a coding animated narrative (CAN) task in the context of an integrated…

In this paper we discuss the types of knowledge used by six middle school students as they engaged with a debugging task designed to integrate ideas from computer science, mathematics and science. Our findings show that the computational thinking practice of debugging is a rich source of opportunities to integrate these different disciplines. The…

Collaborative learning has numerous benefits such as enhancing learners' critical thinking, developing social skills, and improving learning gains. While engaging in this interactive process, learners' satisfaction toward their partners plays a crucial role in defining the success of the collaboration. However, detecting learners' satisfaction…

Computational thinking (CT) is considered to be a critical problem-solving toolkit in the development of every student in the digital twenty-first century. Thus, it is believed that the integration of deeper learning in CT education is an approach to help students transfer their CT skills beyond the classroom. Few literature reviews have mapped…

We developed a near-peer mentoring model for high school youth to mentor middle school youth on how to program using MIT App Inventor. The purpose of this study was to investigate: (a) the effectiveness of the near-peer mentoring model for the mentees; and (b) how the mentees' vicarious experience with the near-peer mentors led to changes in their…

This qualitative case study describes how participation in an outside-of-school program sustained middle school girls' interest in computer science and positively influenced their computational perspectives. Data consists of interviews, observations, and videos analyzed from ten girls participating in a nine-month program during 2017-2018.…

In order to achieve broadening participation in computer science and other careers related to computing, middle school classrooms should provide students opportunities (tasks) to think like a computer scientist. Researchers in computing education promote the idea that programming skill should not be a pre-requisite for students to display…

Despite high scores and abilities, girls lose interest in science and math throughout middle school. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in the computer science research field will grow 19% by 2026; however, only 18% of the bachelor's degrees in computer science are earned by women in the United States (ComputerScience.org, 2021).…

Like other STEM fields, computer science (CS) lacks representation of minorities, such as Black and Hispanic individuals, both in the number of bachelor's degrees obtained and the number of individuals in the CS workforce. Out-of-school CS programs are often designed with the intent to inspire young people to pursue careers in CS. Much of this…

Background: Computational thinking is derived from arguments that the underlying practices in computer science augment problem-solving. Most studies investigated computational thinking development as a function of learners' factors, instructional strategies and learning environment. However, the influence of the wider community such as educational…

Computationally intensive science (CIS)-related disciplines and careers are predicted to be among the cutting-edge fields and high-demand jobs. Such disciplines and careers demand expertise in both traditional scientific knowledge and computer science (CS)-related understanding and skills. Preparing educational systems for developing interest and…