The emergence of new technologies such as three-dimensional virtual worlds brings new opportunities for teaching and learning. We conducted an action research approach to the analysis of how teaching and learning of computer programming at the university level could be developed within the Second Life virtual world. Results support the notion that…

The rich, interdisciplinary tradition of learning styles is markedly absent in information systems-related research. The current study applies the framework of learning styles to a common educational component of many of today's information systems curricula--object-oriented systems development--in an effort to answer the question as to whether…

Targeted email attacks to enable computer network exploitation have become more prevalent, more insidious, and more widely documented in recent years. Beyond nuisance spam or phishing designed to trick users into revealing personal information, targeted malicious email (TME) facilitates computer network exploitation and the gathering of sensitive…

Carefully engineered playable games can serve as vehicles for students and practitioners to learn and explore the programming of advanced computer architectures to execute applications, such as high performance computing (HPC) and complex, inter-networked, distributed systems. The article presents families of playable games that are grounded in…

One of the goals of using robots in introductory programming courses is to increase motivation among learners. There have been several types of robots that have been used extensively in the classroom to teach a variety of computer science concepts. A more recently introduced robot designed to teach programming to novice students is the Institute…

Programming is a fundamental component of modern society. Programming and its applications influence much of how people work and interact. Because of people's reliance on programming in one or many of its applications, there is a need to teach students to be programming literate. Because the purpose of the International Technology and Engineering…

In this article we quantitatively and qualitatively analyze a sample of novice programmer compilation log data, exploring whether (or how) low-achieving, average, and high-achieving students vary in their grasp of these introductory concepts. High-achieving students self-reported having the easiest time learning the introductory programming…

This study identified the teaching beliefs, intentions, and actions of 80 introductory computer programming (CS1) faculty members from institutions of higher education in the United States using the Teacher Perspectives Inventory. Instruction method used inside the classroom, categorized by ACM CS1 curriculum guidelines, was also captured along…

A learning environment having more than one screen enables users to display and compare various sources of learning information with two adjacent screens illustrating the development of interrelated concepts and showing their relationships. This proposed technique could provide higher quality resources for learners by addressing physical and…

Learning to program is a difficult process for novice programmers. AutoLEP, an automated learning and assessment system, was developed by us, to aid novice programmers to obtain programming skills. AutoLEP is ability-training-oriented. It adopts a novel assessment mechanism, which combines static analysis with dynamic testing to analyze student…

Program comprehension is the most important and frequent process in software maintenance. Extensive research has found that individual characteristics of programmers, differences of computer programs, and differences of task-driven motivations are the major factors that affect the program comprehension results. There is no study specifically…

Recursion is a concept that can be used to describe the phenomena and natural occurrences in many different fields. As many applications utilize computer software to model recursion, recursion is a particularly important concept in the computing discipline. However, it is a difficult concept for many undergraduate students to master. A Recursion…

Scratch is a visual programming environment that allows users (primarily ages 8 to 16) to learn computer programming while working on personally meaningful projects such as animated stories and games. A key design goal of Scratch is to support self-directed learning through tinkering and collaboration with peers. This article explores how the…

This paper presents a CAD (classroom assessment design) of an entry-level undergraduate computer programming course "Computer Programming I". CAD has been the product of a long experience in teaching computer programming courses including teaching "Computer Programming I" 22 times. Each semester, CAD is evaluated and modified…

Implementing Web-based educational environment requires not only developing appropriate architectures, but also incorporating human factors considerations. User interface becomes the major channel to convey information in e-learning context: a well-designed and friendly enough interface is thus the key element in helping users to get the best…