In 2022, industry leaders voiced concerns to policymakers that Idaho was not producing enough engineering and computer science graduates from its public institutions to meet the needs of Idaho's economy. In response, the Idaho State Board of Education commissioned an analysis from Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) to…

Background: The pedagogy of computational thinking has gained extensive traction across numerous nations globally, with a particular emphasis on nurturing computational thinking in the formative years of early childhood. Nevertheless, the efficacy of diverse instructional approaches in the domain of programming education, with regards to fostering…

Teaching and learning programming, and especially Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), is a complicated and challenging task. Students have to comprehend various OOP concepts and utilize them for designing object-oriented programs. Various types of educational programming environments, such as microworlds and educational games, have been devised for…

We conducted a systematic literature review on automated grading and feedback tools for programming education. We analysed 121 research papers from 2017 to 2021 inclusive and categorised them based on skills assessed, approach, language paradigm, degree of automation, and evaluation techniques. Most papers assess the correctness of assignments in…

Recently, creativity has been acknowledged for its importance in improving computer science learning and attitudes. However, very little is known about how to integrate creativity in preservice teacher computing education. Toward this end, we developed a creativity-enhancement intervention in an online Creative Computing instructional module to…

Impending climate crises, profound wealth inequality and unprecedented vulnerability to global catastrophe at the hands of technology make working towards justice a necessity, and a desperate one at that. However, engaging in work towards justice requires deconstructing the dominant narratives and norms that restrict what actions are permissible…

Block-based programming environments have become increasingly commonplace in computer science education. Despite a rapidly expanding ecosystem of block-based programming environments, text-based languages remain the dominant programming paradigm outside of educational contexts, motivating the transition from block-based to text-based programming.…

Hour of Code is a widely recognized global event that aims to introduce programming to novice users and integrate computer science into education. This paper presents an analysis of the effectiveness of the support system and user interface of Minecraft Adventurer, a serious game designed for the Hour of Code global event. Although previous…

CODAP is a widely-used programming environment for secondary school data science. Its direct-manipulation-based design offers many advantages to learners, especially younger students. Unfortunately, these same advantages can become a liability when it comes to repeating operations consistently, replaying operations (for reproducibility), and also…

The national conversation about STEM education continues. While math and science have been a constant in K-12 and higher education, curriculum in technology and engineering have not been consistently part of the tapestry of American education. As such, there is a dearth of qualified candidates for the ever-growing number of computer science and…

Critical thinking has been identified as a key ability in most professions, yet employers find college graduates deficient in critical thinking skills. Research on the effect of college on students' critical thinking ability has been contradictory. This study empirically examines the impact of the immersion approach to teach critical thinking used…

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…

Contribution: This article proposes and applies a new systemic 3-D model and a methodology for empathy awareness and development, integrating different partial approaches found in the literature for developing empathy as a transversal competence. Background: Empathy is a competence linked to collaboration and teamwork. Perspective taking (PT) is…

This study aims to examine the current experiences of high school students in computer science (CS) courses and the factors that motivated them to continue their future enrollment. The participants were 603 high school students in grades 9 through 12 in Indiana, all of whom enrolled in at least one CS course during the 2020-2021 academic year.…

Many middle school students come to Computer Science (CS) classes without any previous CS instruction or any Computational Thinking (CT) skills that are needed to be successful. To overcome this, many curriculums and programming environments have been used to engage students and to instill a love of CS. Which curriculum should be used to develop…