With the dramatic growth of text information, there is an increasing need for powerful text mining systems that can automatically discover useful knowledge from text. Text is generally associated with all kinds of contextual information. Those contexts can be explicit, such as the time and the location where a blog article is written, and the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors related to self-efficacy for Java programming among first year engineering students. An instrument assessing Java programming self-efficacy was developed from the computer programming self-efficacy scale of Ramalingam & Wiedenbeck. The instrument was administered at the beginning of the…

Existing research on context and context awareness has broadly focused on the technical aspects of context acquisition and interpretation of users' surroundings, also called physical or sensor-based context. Such an approach has lacked from reconciling the perception of real-world context exhibited by humans, also known as user context, and…

To make learning process more effective, the educational systems deliver content adapted to specific user needs. Adequate personalization requires the domain of learning to be described explicitly in a particular detail, involving relationships between knowledge elements referred to as concepts. Manual creation of necessary annotations is in the…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the "Computer Technology and Programming" curriculum offered at vocational colleges with a focus on the goals of the curriculum and student thoughts. Document analysis and semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather the data. Results revealed that there were mainly four problematic issues…

The purpose of the course presented here is to introduce freshmen to embedded systems using LEGO Mindstorms, under an ANSI-C programming environment. The students build their own LEGO robots, make programs for them using ANSI-C, and operate them. By creating these LEGO robots, the students become more motivated, learning the basic concepts of…

jGRASP has three integrated approaches for interacting with its dynamic viewers for data structures: debugger, workbench, and text-based interactions that allow individual Java statements and expressions to be executed/evaluated. These approaches can be used together to provide a complementary set of interactions with the dynamic viewers. Data…

Many attempt to address the documented achievement gap between urban and suburban students by offering special programs to enrich urban students' academic experiences and proficiencies. Such was the case in the study described by DeGennaro and Brown in which urban students participated in an after-school technology course intended to address the…

Numerous studies document high drop-out and failure rates for students in computer programming classes. Studies show that even when some students pass programming classes, they still do not know how to program. Many factors have been considered to explain this problem including gender, age, prior programming experience, major, math background,…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate student understanding and application of computational thinking patterns to novel situations. Over 500 students, who had just designed and programmed a Frogger-style game using the AgentSheets platform, responded to a newly developed video-prompt survey instrument administered in the Fall 2010 semester.…

This study investigates the different effects of web-based and face-to-face discussion on computer engineering majors' performance using the Karnaugh map in digital logic design. Pretest and posttest scores for two treatment groups (web-based discussion and face-to-face discussion) and a control group were compared and subjected to covariance…

Although conventional student assessments are extremely convenient for calculating student scores, they do not conceptualize how students organize their knowledge. Therefore, teachers and students rarely understand how to improve their future learning progress. The limitations of conventional testing methods indicate the importance of accurately…

Previous studies indicate that the use of pair programming has beneficial effects on student learning. In this article, we present a controlled study that directly measured students' acquisition of individual programming skills using laboratory practice (in which students programmed individually under exam conditions). Additionally, we analyzed…

This paper presents an advanced variant of learning programming by the use of the Internet and multimedia. It describes the development of a blended learning environment, which, in addition to classroom (face-to-face) lessons, introduces lessons delivered over the Internet: the use of multimedia teaching material with completely dynamic…

The security and assurance of our computing infrastructure has become a national priority. To address this priority, higher education has gradually incorporated the principles of computer and information security into the mainstream undergraduate and graduate computer science curricula. To achieve effective education, learning security principles…