Computer Science (CS) Unplugged activities are designed to engage students with CS concepts. It is an active learning approach combining physical interaction with visual representation. This research article investigates the impact of CS Unplugged on students' understanding of the bubble sort algorithm. Algorithm visualization, traditionally…

This study presents the development of a student-centric framework for utilizing virtual reality (VR) technologies in education, specifically focusing on enhancing computational thinking skills. While numerous frameworks exist in this domain, they often lack consideration of student preferences, which are integral for fostering learner autonomy.…

Artificial Intelligence and its sub-disciplines are becoming increasingly relevant in numerous areas of academia as well as industry and can now be considered a core area of Computer Science. The Higher Education sector are offering more courses in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence than ever before. However, there is a lack of research…

Objectives: The increasing demand for computing skills has led to a rapid rise in the development of new computer science (CS) curricula, many with the goal of equitably broadening the participation of underrepresented students in CS. While such initiatives are vital, factors outside of the school environment also play a role in influencing…

Programming skills are an increasingly desirable asset across disciplines; however, learning to program continues to be difficult for many students. To improve pedagogy, we need to better understand the concepts that students find difficult and which have the biggest impact on their learning. Threshold-concept theory provides a potential lens on…

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) hardware is becoming more affordable and accessible. However, there is limited work investigating ways to design software that broadens participation with BCI technology. In this article, we present a block-based programming environment designed to assist novice programmers with creating BCI applications. We also…

Modern web application development provides an attractive application area for introductory software engineering education, as students have direct experience with the domain and it provides them with the potential to gain practical, real-world skills. Achieving this potential requires the development of competency with a multiple component tech…

Literature on global employability signifies "enabling" learning environments where students encounter ill-formed and open-ended problems and are required to adapt and be creative. Varying forms of "projects," co-located and distributed, have populated computing curricula for decades and are generally deemed an answer to this…

We explore the feasibility of early introduction to automata theory through gamification. We designed a puzzle game that players can answer correctly if they understand the fundamental concepts of automata theory. In our investigation, 90 children played the game, and their actions were recorded in play logs. An analysis of the play logs shows…

Game-based learning has received significant attention in educational pedagogy as an effective way of increasing student motivation and engagement. The majority of the work in this area has been focused on digital games or games involving technology. We focus on the use of traditional game design in improving student engagement and perception of…

We investigate the degree to which undergraduate computing students in a United States university consider accessibility several years after instruction. Prior work has found that cultural and ethical norms become ingrained early in STEM professionals' careers; so, we focus on students approaching graduation and after an internship experience, who…

This article presents two case studies aimed at exploring the use of self-explanations in the context of computational science and engineering (CSE) education. The self-explanations were elicited as students' in-code comments of a set of worked-examples, and the cases involved two different approaches to CSE education: glass box and black box. The…

This article reports on an action research project on improving a functional programming course by moving toward a practical and flexible study environment--flipped and blended classroom. Teaching the topic of functional programming was found to be troublesome using a traditional lectured course format. The need to increase students' amount of…

Computing science students amass years of programming experience and a wealth of factual knowledge in their undergraduate courses. Based on our combined years of experience, however, one of our students' abiding shortcomings is that they think there is only "one correct answer" to issues in most courses: an "idealistic"…

We know from research that there is an intimate relationship between student learning and the context of learning. What is not known or understood well enough is the relationship of the students' background and previous studies to the understanding and learning of the subject area--here, computer science (CS). To show the contextual influences on…