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…

Hispanics have the highest growth rates among all groups in the U.S., yet they remain considerably underrepresented in computing careers and in the numbers who obtain advanced degrees. Hispanics constituted about 7% of undergraduate computer science and computer engineering graduates and 1% of doctoral graduates in 2007-2008. The small number of…

To improve instruction in computer engineering and computer science, instructors must better understand how their students learn. Unfortunately, little is known about how students learn the fundamental concepts in computing. To investigate student conceptions and misconceptions about digital logic concepts, the authors conducted a qualitative…

In this phenomenological study, prospective computer teachers' mental images related to the concepts of "school" and "computer teacher" were examined through metaphors. Participants were all the 45 seniors majoring in the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies at Selcuk University, Ahmet Kelesoglu Faculty of…

This paper considers the problem of source code plagiarism by students within the computing disciplines and reports the results of a survey of students in Computing departments in 18 institutions in the U.K. This survey was designed to investigate how well students understand the concept of source code plagiarism and to discover what, if any,…

As the majority of educational research has focused on preservice teachers' computer use for "educational purposes," the question remains: Do preservice teachers use computer technology for daily life activities and encounters? And do preservice teachers' personality traits and motivational beliefs related to computer training provided…

The synthesis of digital circuits is a basic skill in all the bachelor programmes around the ICT area of knowledge, such as Computer Science, Telecommunication Engineering or Electrical Engineering. An important hindrance in the learning process of this skill is that the existing educational tools for the design of circuits do not allow the…

Learning is most effective when accompanied by doing. If someone desires to become a baseball player, being told how to play the game, watching others play and even understanding the rules of the game are mostly ineffective if the individual never "swings the bat". This paper outlines the implementation of this method (swinging the bat)…

This study aimed to evaluate an ESP textbook in terms of McDonough and Shaw (2003) based on external and internal evaluation. The ESP textbook was "Special English for Computer Sciences" (2010) by Hojjat Baghban. This study also discussed the external evaluation and a detailed evaluation of a chapter of the ESP textbook. This ESP…

This paper describes a multidisciplinary teaching program, designed to provide students with the broad knowledge and skills required to practice product development in robotics and mechatronics. The curriculum was designed to prepare students for the senior capstone design project, in which they design and build a working mechatronic/robotic…

To design an effective computer science curriculum, educators require a systematic method of classifying the difficulty level of learning activities and assessment tasks. This is important for curriculum design and implementation and for communication between educators. Different educators must be able to use the method consistently, so that…

The purpose of this study was to determine a student's computer knowledge upon course entry and if there was a difference in college students' improvement scores as measured by the difference in pretest and posttest scores of new or novice users, moderate users, and expert users at the end of a college-level introductory computing class. This…

This paper reports on a student-created and facilitated peer-tutoring activity to assist first-year students in preparing for their final exam in an introductory information technology course. Tutors at the CIS Sandbox, a collaborative learning lab at an American university, offered a series of "Crunch Sessions" to their peers. This…

This paper reports on progress and conclusions of two-year research of gender issues in studying computer science at Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad. Using statistics on data gathered by a survey, the work presented here focused on identifying, understanding, and correlating both female and…

The purpose of the present study was to examine application materials for assistant professor positions in 3 academic disciplines. Applicants were asked to write a diversity statement describing how they would advance diversity through their research, teaching, and service. The sample included application materials submitted by 191 candidates for…