Background: The present study analyses the design of programming literacy in the sixth grade of Primary Education, starting from the use of simple activities with visual block-based programming, through "Scratch," and progressively linking difficulty to the use of the "Unity" engine, and the "C#" language, with simple…

Background: With the development of computational literacy, there has been a surge in both research and practice application of text-based and block-based modalities within the field of computer programming education. Despite this trend, little work has actually examined how learners engaging in programming process when utilizing these two major…

Background: The world is moving towards digitalization and intelligence. Programming has become an essential development competency. Even though many countries are currently making great efforts to expand programming education, the programming education in these countries shows an imbalance in geographical and gender dimensions. We found that few…

Background: Being easy to learn and fun, block-based programming tools are widely used to teach students introductory programming. Scratch and LEGO robots are two popular block-based programming tools. However, the objects they manipulate are completely different. Scratch manipulates graphical virtual sprites, whereas LEGO robots manipulate…

Background: Integrating programming in K-12 curriculum has become a global consensus. Teachers are central figures in programming instruction. But the majority of current research focuses on teachers' external teaching behaviours and less on teachers' attitudes towards programming. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to validate the K-12…

Background: Owing to the exponential growth of three-dimensional (3D) environments amongst researchers and educators to create simulation games (SGs) in primary education, there is a growing interest to examine their potential support in computer science courses instead of visual programming environments. Objectives: This study explores the…

The long-standing debate into the potential benefit of developing mathematical thinking skills through learning to program has been reignited with the widespread introduction of programming in schools across many countries, including England where it is a statutory requirement for all pupils to be taught programming from 5 years old. Algorithm is…

Limitations of formal learning (e.g., one-way communication, rigid methodology, results-oriented approach) can significantly influence the motivation and expectation of students, thus resulting in an academic progress reduction. In order to make learning processes more playful and motivating, this paper presents a new educational experience…

Repositories with educational resources can support the formation of online learning communities by providing a platform for collaboration. Users (e.g. teachers, tutors and learners) access repositories, search for interesting resources to access and use, and in many cases, also exchange experiences and opinions. A particular class of online…

This paper presents Programming Adaptive Testing (PAT), a Web-based adaptive testing system for assessing students' programming knowledge. PAT was used in two high school programming classes by 73 students. The question bank of PAT is composed of 443 questions. A question is classified in one out of three difficulty levels. In PAT, the levels of…

Discusses the importance of standards in introductory programming courses that enable novice software developers to write correct programs to specification and time. Considers issues involved with assessing students' programming abilities. Provides an overview of an automated assessment system adopted at the University of Warwick (United Kingdom)…

Discusses multimedia authoring software that uses hypertext and reviews the ways in which use of this technology may support improvements in assessment. Describes research with sixth graders in England that investigated how pupil-produced multimedia documents can reveal aspects of performance that traditional tests may not recognize. (Author/LRW)