Teaching programming is a topic that has generated a high level of interest among researchers in recent decades. In particular, multiple approaches to teaching visual programming have been explored, from the use of tools such as Scratch, robots, unplugged programming, or activities for the development of computational thinking. Despite the wide…

The rise of online programming education has necessitated more effective personalized interactions, a gap that PythonPal aims to fill through its innovative learning system integrated with a chatbot. This research delves into PythonPal's potential to enhance the online learning experience, especially in contexts with high student-to-teacher ratios…

Intelligent tutoring systems have become increasingly common in assisting students but are often aimed at isolated subject-domain tasks without creating a scaffolding system from lower- to higher-level cognitive skills, with low-level skills often neglected. We designed and developed an intelligent tutoring system, CompPrehension, which aims to…

In this study, we developed a classification system of programming errors based on the historical data of 680,540 programming records collected on the Online Judge platform. The classification system described six types of programming errors (i.e., syntax, logical, type, writing, misunderstanding, and runtime errors) and their connections with…

Online learning systems should support students preparedness for professional practice by equipping them with the necessary skills while keeping them engaged and active. In that regard, the development of online learning systems that support students' development and engagement with programming is a challenging process. Early career computer…

Artificial intelligence (AI) in programming teaching is something that still has to be explored, since in this area assessment tools that allow grading the students work are the most common ones, but there are not many tools aimed toward providing feedback to the students in the process of creating their program. In this work a small sized…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for programming learning based on information tutoring feedback (ITF) to provide real-time guidance and feedback to self-directed learners during programming problem-solving and to improve learners' computational thinking. Design/methodology/approach: By…

Programming skills are a vital part of many disciplines but can be challenging to teach and learn. Thus, the programming courses are considered difficult and a major stumbling block. To overcome these challenges, students could benefit from extensive individual support such as tutoring, but there are simply not enough qualified tutors available to…

Intelligent tutoring systems for programming education can support students by providing personalized feedback when a student is stuck in a coding task. We study the problem of designing a hint policy to provide a next-step hint to students from their current partial solution, e.g., which line of code should be edited next. The state of the art…

Large language models (LLMs), such as Codex, hold great promise in enhancing programming education by automatically generating feedback for students. We investigate using LLMs to generate feedback for fixing syntax errors in Python programs, a key scenario in introductory programming. More concretely, given a student's buggy program, our goal is…

Learning basic programming concepts in computer science-related fields poses a challenge for students, to the extent that it becomes an academic-social problem, resulting in high failure and dropout rates. Proposed solutions to the problem can be found in the literature, such as the development of new programming languages and environments, the…

Nowadays, the improvement of digital learning with Artificial Intelligence has attracted a lot of research, as it provides solutions for individualized education styles which are independent of place and time. This is particularly the case for computer science, as a tutoring domain, which is rapidly growing and changing and as such, learners need…

In an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), problem (or question) difficulty is one of the most critical parameters, directly impacting problem design, test paper organization, result analysis, and even the fairness guarantee. However, it is very difficult to evaluate the problem difficulty by organized pre-tests or by expertise, because these…

Controlling complexity through the use of abstractions is a critical part of problem solving in programming. Thus, becoming proficient with procedural and data abstraction through the use of user-defined functions is important. Properly using functions for abstraction involves a number of other core concepts, such as parameter passing, scope and…

Self-efficacy, or the belief in one's ability to accomplish a task or achieve a goal, can significantly influence the effectiveness of various instructional methods to induce learning gains. The importance of self-efficacy is particularly pronounced in complex subjects like Computer Science, where students with high self-efficacy are more likely…