While pedagogical and technological affordances of three-dimensional (3D) multiuser virtual worlds in various educational disciplines are largely well-known, a study about their effect on high school students' engagement in introductory programming courses is still lacking. This case study presents students' opinions about their participation in a…

This phenomenographic study opens the classroom door to investigate teachers' experiences of students learning difficult computing topics. Three distinct themes are identified and analysed. "Why" do students succeed or fail to learn these concepts? "What" actions do teachers perceive will ameliorate the difficulties facing…

Gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game settings to engage participants and encourage desired behaviors. It has been identified as a promising technique to improve students' engagement which could have a positive impact on learning. This study evaluated the learning effectiveness and engagement appeal of a gamified learning…

In this article the authors compare two phases of an ongoing, annual online peer observation project at the Open University. Adopting a non-managerialist approach, the project aims to give teachers a renewed sense of collegiality, allowing them to take responsibility for aspects of their professional development and share practice points. While…

In recent decades, increasing numbers of EMI (English as Medium of Instructions) courses have been added to university course offerings in countries where English is not the first language, as a way of supporting university internalization and addressing the global status of English. However, some studies argue that EMI courses might affect the…

Reconfigurable computing is an established field in computer science. Teaching this field to computer science students demands special attention due to limited student experience in electronics and digital system design. This article presents a compact course on reconfigurable processors, which was offered at the Technische Universitat Darmstadt,…

This paper presents results of a questionnaire focused on investigating students' confidence and behavioral intention in the area of programming, particularly that of structures, problem solving, and programming commands (Conditional--Loop). Responses from 116 1st year students regarding informatics were used. The results indicate that the…

This article discusses the evolution of computing education in preparing for the next wave of computing. With the proliferation of mobile devices, most agree that we are living in a "post-PC" world. Using the Raspberry Pi computer platform, based in the UK, as an example, the author discusses computing education in a world where the…

This study investigates the relationship between approaches to studying and course completion in two online preparatory university courses in mathematics and computer programming. The students participating in the two courses are alike in age, gender, and approaches to learning. Four hundred and ninety-three students participating in these courses…

This paper presents trial evaluation of a visual computer simulator in 2009-2011, which has been developed to play some roles of both instruction facility and learning tool simultaneously. And it illustrates an example of Computer Architecture education for University students and usage of e-Learning tool for Assembly Programming in order to…

This paper presents the online cognitive and algorithm tests, which were developed in order to determine if certain cognitive factors and fundamental algorithms correlate with the performance of students in their introductory computer science course. The tests were implemented among Management Information Systems majors from the Philippines and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and understand whether students who complete a work placement as part of their degree course achieve a better classification of degree than those students who do not include a placement. Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted by extracting the profiles of computing students from…

This paper discusses a comparative study of the effects of using a humanoid robot for introducing students to personal robotics. Even if a humanoid robot is one of the more complicated types of robots, comprehension was not an issue. The study highlighted the importance of using real hardware for teaching such complex subjects as opposed to…

This paper reports findings from a phenomenographic investigation into blended university teaching using virtual learning environments (VLEs). Interviews with 25 Computer Science teachers in Greek universities illuminated a spectrum of teachers' conceptions and approaches from "teacher-focused and content-oriented", through…

Learning analytics has been as used a tool to improve the learning process mainly at the micro-level (courses and activities). However, another of the key promises of learning analytics research is to create tools that could help educational institutions at the meso- and macro-level to gain better insight into the inner workings of their programs…