Computational thinking (CT) is increasingly integrated into education, promoting problem-solving skills essential for the 21st century. However, little is known about how teachers assess CT in K-12 classrooms. This qualitative study explores elementary teachers' approaches to CT assessment after professional development in integrating CT into core…

Background and Context: Auto-graders are praised by novice students learning to program, as they provide them with automatic feedback about their problem-solving process. However, some students often make random changes when they have errors in their code, without engaging in deliberate thinking about the cause of the error. Objective: To…

Students learning computer science frequently struggle with debugging errors in their code. These struggles can have significant downstream effects--negatively influencing how students assess their programming ability and contributing to their decision to drop out of CS courses. However, debugging instruction is often an overlooked topic, and…

Background and Context: More data are needed about how young learners identify and fix errors while programming in pairs. Objective: The study will identify discernible patterns in the intersection between debugging processes and the type of regulation used during debugging while children engage in coding to drive further theory and model…

Background and Context: Debugging is a challenging yet understudied practice within recent collaborative K-12 physical computing contexts. We examined think-aloud interviews and reflections of seven high school student pairs who debugged researcher-designed buggy electronic textile projects. Objective: We asked: (1) What strategies did student…

Computational thinking (CT), an essential 21st century skill, incorporates key computer science concepts such as abstraction, algorithms, and debugging. Debugging is particularly underrepresented in the CT training literature. This multi-level meta-analysis focused on debugging as a core CT skill, and investigated the effects of various debugging…

To make sense of our interconnected and algorithm driven world, students increasingly need proficiency with computational thinking (CT), systems thinking (ST), and computational modeling. One aspect of computational modeling that can support students with CT, ST, and modeling is testing and debugging. Testing and debugging enables students to…

Debugging is a core skill required by programmers, yet we know little about how to effectively teach the process of debugging. The challenges of learning debugging are compounded for novices who lack experience and are still learning the tools they need to program effectively. In this work, we report a case study in which we used a think-aloud…

Computer science is often integrated within early childhood education (ECE) through the use of educational robots. This requires adequate preparation of ECE teachers to program and debug, which can be done with scaffolding. In this paper, we use a QUANT + qual mixed method approach incorporating lag sequential analysis, ICAP framework coding,…

Electronic textiles (e-textiles) weave computational and electronic components into fabric, enabling students to design and build fabric-based projects that interact with their surroundings. This meshing of physical hardware and virtual software can be difficult for students to untangle when debugging. Is an LED failing to light up because of an…

Debugging (or troubleshooting) provides a rich context to foster problem-solving. Yet, while we know much about some problems and strategies that novices face in programming on-screen, we know far less about debugging and troubleshooting in the context of physical computing, where coding issues may overlap with materially embedded problems. In…

It is widely recognized that debugging is challenging for novice programmers and, as such, computing educators and researchers have called for explicit debugging instruction. Debugging requires various knowledge and skills, and different students may show different strengths and weaknesses. An understanding of such individual differences is…

Objectives: Physical computing systems are increasingly being integrated into secondary school science and STEM instruction, yet little is known about how teachers, especially those with little background and experience in computing, help students during the inevitable debugging moments that arise. In this article, we describe a framework,…

Much attention in constructionism has focused on designing tools and activities that support learners in designing fully finished and functional applications and artefacts to be shared with others. But helping students learn to debug their applications often takes on a surprisingly more instructionist stance by giving them checklists, teaching…

Computer science (CS) has become a critical part of K-12 education worldwide. Computational thinking (CT) skills are a key set of competencies in CS education that can solve problems and use computational design to create useful solutions. However, preservice and in-service teachers are not fully prepared to integrate CS and CT into their…