ICER

Discussions of teaching - even some publications - abound with anecdotal evidence. Our intuition often supplants a systematic, scientific approach to finding out what works and what doesn't work. Yet, research is increasingly demonstrating that our gut ...

There is great interest in understanding and influencing students' attraction to computing-related majors. This qualitative study is based on interviews with 31 students enrolled in introductory programming courses at two public universities in the ...

As CS becomes a larger field, many undergraduate programs are giving students greater freedom in the classes that make up their degree. This study looks at the process by which students within the CS major choose to specialize in some area. In this ...

This paper discusses the results of a Grounded Theory study on students experience with introductory programming assignments in the light of social cognitive theory. In previous studies we have found CS majors experienced the process of doing CS1 ...

In this paper we suggest that in order to advance, the field of computer science education needs to craft its own research methods, to augment the borrowing of "traditional" methods such as semi-structured interviews and surveys from other research ...

This paper describes the development of a classification scheme that can be used to investigate the characteristics of introductory programming examinations. We describe the process of developing the scheme, explain its categories, and present a taste ...

We posit that functional programmers employ a notion called expression integrity to understand programs. We attempt to study the extent to which both novices and experts use this notion as they program, discuss the difficulties that arise in measuring ...

Peer Instruction (PI) is an instructional approach that engages students in constructing their own understanding of concepts. Students individually respond to a question, discuss with peers, and respond to the same question again. In general, the peer ...

PeerWise (PW) is an online tool that allows students in a course to collaborate and learn by creating, sharing, answering and discussing multiple-choice questions (MCQs). Previous studies of PW at the introductory level have shown that students in ...

Research has shown that most learning in the workplace takes place outside of formal training and, given the swiftly changing nature of the field, computer science graduates more than most workers, need to be able to learn computing topics outside of ...

Informal learning resources have the potential to reach millions of currently underserved learners teaching themselves about the basics of computing using the Web, example code, peer networks, books, and other materials. In this paper, we investigate ...

In order to explore and validate suitable methods for investigating learning processes, we are currently conducting a case study, exploring the mental models of novice students in the field of object oriented modeling and programming. After abstracting ...

In this study, we attempted to quantify indicators of novice programmer progress in the task of writing programs, and we evaluated the use of these indicators for identifying academically at-risk students. Over the course of nine weeks, students ...

Of the students who pass introductory programming courses, many appear unable to explain the purpose of simple code fragments such as a loop to find the greatest element in an array. It has never been established whether this is because the students are ...

This paper has been removed because it is redundant with a work the authors presented at an earlier conference whose proceedings ACM had already published. See: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1953163.1953254

Many novice programmers view programming tools as all-knowing, infallible authorities about what is right and wrong about code. This misconception is particularly detrimental to beginners, who may view the cold, terse, and often judgmental errors from ...

For over a century, studio-based instruction has served as an effective pedagogical model in architecture and fine arts education. Because of its design orientation, human-computer interaction (HCI) education is an excellent venue for studio-based ...

Web development can provide a rich context for exploring computer science concepts and practicing computational creativity. However, little is known about the experiences that people have when first learning web development. In this paper, we ...

Computing and computation are increasingly pervading our lives, careers, and societies - a change driving interest in computing education at the secondary level. But what should define a "general education" computing course at this level? That is, what ...

A dissertation overview addressing what resources students bring to learning to program, which may provide explanations for why some students are more or less successful learning to program.

We interviewed eight students to better understand what kind of difficulties students have when learning concurrent programming. According to these interviews students does not consider concurrency to be radically more difficult than other Computer ...

This is a summary of my thesis work, which examines the sense of identity HS CS teachers hold and explores ways of supporting their identity development through a professional development program focusing on community building and teacher reflection.

Dissertation overview, addressing the concept of Pedadogical Content Knowledge for the teaching and learning of programming for secondary education.

Students' ability to reason and abstract about code is an important factor in the development of their expertise in producing code. The literature has primary focused on the correlation between measures of students' ability to abstract about code and ...