Search

Students in their first year of computer science (CS1) at universities typically struggle to grasp fundamental programming concepts. This paper discusses research carried out using a Java-based visual execution environment (VEE) to introduce fundamental programming concepts to CS1 students. The VEE guides beginner programmers through the fundamentals of programming, utilizing visual metaphors to explain and direct interactive tasks implemented in Java. The study's goal was to determine if the use of the VEE in the instruction of a group of 63 CS1 students from four different groups enrolled in two academic institutions (based in Madrid, Spain and Galway, Ireland) results in an improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts. The programming concepts covered included those typically found in an introductory programming course, e.g., input and output, conditionals, loops, functions, arrays, recursion, and files. A secondary goal of this research was to examine if the use of the VEE enhances students' understanding of particular concepts more than others, i.e., whether there exists a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE. The results of the study found that use of the VEE in the instruction of these students resulted in a significant improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts compared with a control group who received instruction without the use of the VEE. The study also found a pronounced improvement in the students' grasp of particular concepts (e.g., operators, conditionals, and loops), suggesting the presence of a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a conceptual analysis of numerous frameworks for teachers’ digital competence (TDC), one such framework was selected to be implemented, and the state of development of the TDC and its relationship with the introduction of computer programming have been studied. The hypothesis is that the implementation of a TDC framework within a first-year university class within an Education degree, called Computer Science and Digital Competence would help future teachers to significantly improve their TDC and, specifically, increase their knowledge of computer programming. In order to test this hypothesis, a study has been carried out with 116 students enrolled in the degree programs in Early Childhood and Primary Education at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. The results show that the participants were not digitally competent at the beginning of the course but that they had become significantly more so at the end of it, with a large effect size. Additionally, the prospective teachers did not understand the basic concepts of programming at the beginning of the course, but by the end their knowledge of programming concepts had improved significantly, as evidenced by the large effect size, although even by the end of the course they had not reached an adequate level of programming. The most used frequently tools among students are WhatsApp, social networks and email, but many they were not aware of tools such as podcasts or forums. In addition, the motivation of the participants to learn programming seems to be excellent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant interest in teaching children to code since Preschool Education has arisen in recent years. This paper focuses on the benefits of preschoolers learning to code at such short age. The research questions are whether by coding they can improve skills such as sequencing and plotting a route? Which factors influence the learning? And, to what extent? To start coding, preschoolers might use robots such as Cubetto or KIBO, or other unplugged resources such as foam. Moreover, stories could be used to provide a context and a goal for the coding experience. An experiment was carried out with 192 children between 3 and 6 years old in age to gather some data. The hypothesis that the skills were improved by coding was proved; and that age, resources, and initial knowledge influence the learning process. This paper contributes more evidence of the benefits of coding in early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to active learning, students should be responsible for their own learning. Automatic free-text scoring allows teachers to provide open-ended questions with their correct answers to a computer system, so when students answer the questions, they get immediate feedback (a score, a comment, or both). However, teachers are usually overloaded with many tasks, and they may not have time to create the questions with the correct answers. Therefore, in the 2012/2013 academic year, we asked a group of 124 Pre-Primary and Primary Education students to become the creators of the questions and their correct answers in groups in a free-text scoring system, so the questions use learners’ language, not teachers’ language. From them, 41 students (group of involved students, GIS) fulfilled all the requirements during the course. Our hypothesis was that GIS would be able to increase their academic performance and levels of engagement compared to the rest of the students. The results gathered provide statistic evidence to support that hypothesis. This study pretends to help teachers who want to increase the academic performance and levels of engagement of their students in courses that they may find boring and unrelated to the main topic of their degree, or not directly related with their main academic interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First-year computer science (CS1) university students traditionally have difficulties understanding how to program. This paper describes research introducing CS1 students to programming concepts using a Scratch programming language guided visual execution environment (VEE). The concepts addressed are those from an introductory programming course (sequences, variables, operators, conditionals, loops, and events and parallelism). The VEE guides novice students through programming concepts, explaining and guiding interactive exercises executed in Scratch by using metaphors and serious games. The objective of this study is, firstly, to investigate if a cohort of 124 CS1 students, from three distinct groups, studying at the same university, are able to improve their programming skills guided by the VEE. Secondly, is the improvement different for various programming concepts? All the CS1 students were taught the module by the same tutor in four 2-h sessions (8 h), and a qualitative research approach was adopted. The results show students significantly improved their programming knowledge, and this improvement is significant for all the programming concepts, although greater for certain concepts such as operators, conditionals, and loops than others. It also shows that students lacked initial knowledge of events and parallelism, though most had used Scratch during their high school years. The sequence concept was the most popular concept known to them. A collateral finding in this study is how the students' previous knowledge and learning gaps affected grades they required to access and begin study at the university level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reduced interest and low motivation in learning amongst vocational students has become a challenge with many traditional strategies not capable of providing a solution to motivation and encouraging participation in learning. The use of elements of games in non-recreational environments (gamification) may be a possible solution, since research indicates an improvement in user experience and engagement, with possibilities of improved motivation and behavioral results. However not all studies obtain positive results, the success of gamification is influenced by the design, the sample, and the context. This study analyzes a gamification design with the most common elements in three methodological approaches (teacher-centered, student-centered, and mixed) in three different periods throughout a program of study with vocational training students. The results indicate that the mixed approach performed worse than the other two. Carrying out a greater number of tasks did not imply a better result in the subject marks, but rather paying more attention to each task influences the result positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational thinking (CT) is a key skill in the 21st century. However, it is not clear which is the most effective way to acquire and improve CT. Big research efforts are made to determine which pedagogical means should be used. One research trend is based on the idea that teaching programming since Primary Education suffices to improve CT. In our previous work, we proposed and validated a methodology based on metaphors and used of Scratch (MECOPROG) to teach basic programming concepts to children. It is our hypothesis H that by applying MECOPROG, students will develop their CT. To check H, we carried out an experiment with 132 Primary Education Students (9–12 years in age). At the beginning of the experiment, all students were asked to fill in a programming concepts test and two tests to measure their CT. During the sessions, all students were taught according to MECOPROG. Finally, they took the three tests again. A significant increase in the results on all the tests has been measured, supporting the use of metaphors and Scratch to teach computer programming concepts to Primary Education students to develop their CT. • Computational Thinking can be improved using metaphors and Scratch. • Primary Education students' Computational Thinking can be improved. • Primary Education students can learn basic programming concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]