We use a validated conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument focusing on thermodynamic processes and the first and second laws of thermodynamics at the level of introductory physics to investigate the problem-property dependence of introductory and advanced student responses to introductory thermodynamics problems after traditional…

Background and Context: Gender research shows that women are better at reading comprehension. Other studies indicate a lower tendency in women to choose STEM professions. Since data modeling requires reading skills and also belongs in the areas of information systems and computer science (STEM professions), these findings provoked our curiosity.…

Education researchers are deeply interested in understanding the way students organize their knowledge. Card sort tasks, which require students to group concepts, are one mechanism to infer a student's organizational strategy. However, the limited resolution of card sort tasks means they necessarily miss some of the nuance in a student's strategy.…

The principles of programming language design for learning and teaching have been described and discussed for several decades. Most influential was the work of Niklaus Wirth, describing principles such as simplicity, modularity, orthogonality, and readability. So why is this still an area of fundamental disagreement among educators? Why can…

In this study at a research-intensive public university, a group of eight instructors across a range of disciplines designed a writing assignment in which students (n=104) chose to write to one of three audiences--the teacher, a novice, or an adjacent expert. Students were then asked to complete a questionnaire that included open-ended questions…

This study examined the use of analogy in architectural design. Its main goal was to provide an understanding of how experts and novices alike used visual analog thinking to generate satisfactory solutions during their design process. A series of controlled experiments were conducted in order to examine how this cognitive strategy contributes to…

Background: Coding has become an integral part of STEM education. However, novice learners face difficulties in processing codes within embedded structures (also termed nested structures). This study aimed to investigate the cognitive mechanism underlying the processing of embedded coding structures based on hierarchical complexity theory, which…

Prior studies in the Computer Science education literature have illustrated that novices make many mistakes in composing SQL queries. Query formulation proves to be difficult for students. Only recently, some headway was made towards understanding why SQL leads to so many mistakes, by uncovering student misconceptions. In this article, we shed new…

A replication study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of an instructional treatment based on self-efficacy theory when used with novice Arduino microcontroller users. Students (n = 32) in an introductory university agricultural systems technology course participated in a lesson on Arduino microcontrollers, circuit breadboarding, and…

People with visual impairments use a wide variety of sensory information to understand the world around them. Many persons who are visually impaired (i.e., those who are blind or have low vision) use some form of echolocation to monitor the space around them. This process of identifying the properties of an object may be referred to as…

Background and context: Emotions are ubiquitous in academic settings and affect learning strategies, motivation to persevere, and academic outcomes, however they have not figured prominently in research on learning to program at the university level. Objective: To summarize the current knowledge available on the effect of emotions on students…

Background: STEM minority participation programs have been widely implemented in higher education with the goal of diversifying the global STEM workforce. Informed by research highlighting the potential of targeted exploration of STEM roles and refection on the self in relation to STEM (identity exploration), this work examines how engagement in a…

Scholarly calls surrounding the need to prepare journalism students for hostile encounters and harassment are emerging. Using in-depth interviews with 28 early-career journalists from across the United States, this project underscores a need for content related to hostility within journalism courses. Findings also highlighted a tension between…

The number of initiatives developed to support student persistence and retention in higher education has expanded a great deal within the last 10 years. Many of these solutions have been created with the intent to directly influence and enhance students' cognitive abilities while disregarding the critical role that non-cognitive factors play in…

This study investigated stereotypes about teachers of German that 67 novice learners of German at a U.S. university had reportedly encountered. Consequently, the investigation explored the perceived accuracy of clichés associated with native-speaker and non-native-speaker instructors. Students' stereotypical notions were sorted into categories…