We report the development and initial evaluation of a serious game that, in conjunction with appropriately designed matching laboratory exercises, can be used to teach secure coding and Information Assurance (IA) concepts across a range of introductory computing courses. The IA Game is a role-playing serious game (RPG) in which the student travels…

The introduction of computer programming in K-12 has become mainstream in the last years, as countries around the world are making coding part of their curriculum. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical studies that investigate how learning to program at an early age affects other school subjects. In this regard, this paper compares three…

Differentiated instruction in the form of tiered take-home lab exercises was implemented for students of an undergraduate-level programming course. This paper attempts to uncover the perceptions and usage patterns of students toward these new lab exercises using a comprehensive survey. Findings reveal that these tiered exercises are generally very…

Critical thinking, problem solving, the use of tools, and the ability to consume and analyze information are important skills for the 21st century workforce. This article presents a qualitative case study that follows five undergraduate biology majors in a computer science course (CS0). This CS0 course teaches programming within a data-driven…

Today, information technology (IT) has permeated virtually every aspect of our society and the learning of software programming is becoming increasingly important to the creation and maintenance of the IT infrastructure critical to our daily life. In this article, we report the results of a study that demonstrates how the self-regulation paradigm…

This paper explores the application of canonical gradient analysis to evaluate and visualize student performance and acceptance of a learning system platform. The subject of evaluation is a first year BSc module for computer programming. This uses "Ceebot," an animated and immersive game-like development environment. Multivariate…

App Inventor has been used successfully to teach introduction to programming course for CS/IS/IT and Non-CS majors. Now, researchers are looking on how to include the tool in the curriculum of more advanced computing courses. This paper presents some Issues, Challenges and Opportunities observed while teaching courses on Mobile Application…

This study investigates the effectiveness of pair programming on student learning and satisfaction in introductory programming courses. Pair programming, used in the industry as a practice of an agile development method, can be adopted in classroom settings to encourage peer learning, increase students' social skills, and enhance student…

With the widespread use of the Internet, adopting e-learning systems in courses has gradually become more and more important in universities in Taiwan. However, because of limitations of teachers' time, selecting suitable online IT tools has become very important. This study proposes an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-multi-choice goal…

Educational robotics proposes the use of robots as a teaching resource that enables inexperienced students to approach topics in fields unrelated to robotics. In recent years, these activities have grown substantially in elementary and secondary school classrooms and also in outreach experiences to interest students in science, technology,…

This article brings together, summarizes, and comments on several threads of research that have contributed to our understanding of the challenges that novice programmers face when learning about the runtime dynamics of programs and the role of the computer in program execution. More specifically, the review covers the literature on programming…

Since pair programming appeared in the literature as an effective method of teaching computer programming, many systems were developed to cover the application of pair programming over distance. Today's systems serve personal, professional and educational purposes allowing distributed teams to work together on the same programming project. The…

The use of integrated science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instruction has the affordances of combining harmonious content area connections into real-world experiences that are both engaging and challenging. This article introduces findings from a study that used an integrated robotics module to expose in-service and preservice…

Mobile devices are becoming indispensable tools for many students and educators. Mobile technology is starting a new era in the computing methodologies in many engineering disciplines and laboratories. Microcontroller extension that communicates with mobile devices will take the data acquisition and control process into a new level in the sensing…

The topics of computer architecture are always taught using an Assembly dialect as an example. The most commonly used textbooks in this field use the MIPS64 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) to help students in learning the fundamentals of computer architecture because of its orthogonality and its suitability for real-world applications. This…