Object-oriented programming (OOP) is not only an integral part of computing degrees but also a requirement in non-computing majors such as engineering. Understanding OOP concepts can be difficult for novice programmers, and often leads to the development of misconceptions. This is exacerbated when the discipline requires students to learn a…

Programming is becoming increasingly common in mathematics degrees as it is a desirable skill for new graduates. However, research shows that its use is mostly restricted to computational or modelling tasks. This paper reports a study on students' perceptions of and difficulties with Lean, an interactive theorem prover introduced as part of a…

Providing appropriate feedback is important when learning to program. However, it is still unclear how different feedback strategies affect learning outcomes in programming. This study designed four different two-step programming feedback strategies and explored their impact on novice programmers' academic achievement, learning motivations, and…

This study explores the effects of worked-out examples and metacognitive scaffolding on novice learners' knowledge performance, cognitive loads, and self-regulation skills in problem-solving programming. 126 undergraduate students in a computer programming fundamentals course were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (1) task performance with…

Programming is an interdisciplinary practice with applications in both mathematics and computer science. Mathematics concerns rigor, abstraction, and generalization. Computer science predominantly concerns efficiency, concreteness, and physicality. This makes programming a medium for problem solving that mediates between mathematics and computer…

Background and Context: We explore the potential for understanding the processes involved in students' programming based on studying their behaviour and dialogue with each other and "conversations" with their programs. Objective: Our aim is to explore how a perspective of inquiry can be used as a point of departure for insights into how…

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT are becoming increasingly common in educational settings, especially in programming education. However, the impact of these tools on the learning process, student performance, and best practices for their integration remains underexplored. This study examines student experiences and…

This article reviews literature on worked examples in the context of programming activities. We focus on two types of examples, namely, code-tracing and code-generation, because there is sufficient research on these to warrant a review. We synthesize key results according to themes that emerged from the review. This synthesis aims to provide…

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a significant increase in the utilization of video-based e-learning platforms for programming education. These platforms never considered the essential attributes of student characteristics and learning preferences while designing such a problematic subject having high dropout and failure rates. The traditional…

Various similarity measures for source code have been proposed, many rely on edit- or tree-distance. To support a lecturer in quickly assessing live or online exercises with respect to "approaches taken by the students," we compare source code on a more abstract, semantic level. Even if novice student's solutions follow the same idea,…

Few studies have analyzed students' teamwork (pairwork) habits in programming projects due to the challenges and high cost of analyzing complex, long-term collaborative processes. In this work, we analyze student teamwork data collected from the GitHub platform with the goal of identifying specific pair teamwork styles. This analysis builds on an…

Learning programming logic remains an obstacle for students from different academic fields. Considered one of the essential disciplines in the field of Science and Technology, it is vital to investigate the new tools or techniques used in the teaching and learning of Programming Language. This work presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on…

Computer programming is regarded as an important skill for the future. However, many K-12 students face challenges and difficulties in learning traditional text-based programming. Block-based visual programming (BVP) can reduce the difficulty of learning programming and is seen as a potential programming education tool. Nevertheless, the effects…

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…

The 1980s and 1990s saw a robust connection between computer science education and cognitive psychology as researchers worked to understand how students learn to program. More recently, academic disciplines such as science and engineering have begun drawing on cognitive psychology research and theories of learning to create instructional materials…