A heterogeneous group of students starts to study informatics each year. Observations show that students need individual support, to create well educated computer scientists. Unfortunately, this does not scale to large student numbers.

My goal is to ...

This dissertation investigates the comparative affordances and drawbacks of blocks-based, text-based, and hybrid blocks/text introductory programming tools. Blocks-based programming environments are growing in popularity and are increasingly being used ...

Data science is an emerging 21st century literacy that promises to support learning in a wide variety of disciplines, from science, to social science, to the humanities. It also provides an engaging context in which to learn computational thinking ...

To meet the demand for young students learning computer science, computer science curricula for students in elementary school (ages 5-11) are emerging. With those curricula comes the question, how do we gauge young students' computer science knowledge ...

Intelligent Tutoring Systems are highly effective at helping students learn, but have required intensive amounts of development time in the past, keeping teachers from making their own. Data-driven tutoring has made it possible to build these tutors ...

Block Programming Environments (BPEs) are becoming popular tools for introducing novices to programming, due in part to their connection with students' interests in games, apps and stories. This has led to increasing use of BPEs outside of classroom ...

My research investigates the interaction between privilege and computer science education, and asks what more can be done to level the playing field. Privilege is an unearned, unasked-for advantage gained because of the way society views an aspect of a ...

Student retention in STEM disciplines is a growing problem. The number of students receiving undergraduate STEM degrees will need to increase by about 34% annually in order to meet projected needs [6]. One way to address this problem is by leveraging ...

This document describes the motivation, background and the current state of my PhD research project. I am aiming to develop a test model to measure educators' knowledge about misconceptions in computer science. I will first outline my position as a PhD ...

My research explores how learning computer science, specifically programming, differs from learning math or science in relation to educational psychological principles. I have replicated well established experiments from the science and math domains by ...

Software engineering has been taught over the years using expositive classes, but learning this discipline requires more than just theory. Lately, universities started teaching software engineering in a theoretical-practical way. Typically, these ...

The standard paradigm of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) affords one-on-one learning between a student and a computer tutor. My work shifts this paradigm to accommodate multiple-student computer-mediated learning. The work is grounded in Computer ...

Numerous studies document the value of worked examples in mathematics education and provide guidance regarding effective instructional design choices. The research described here draws on that body of work, research on learning from errors, and computer ...

Parsons problems are code segments that must be placed in the correct order with the correct indention. Research on Parsons problems suggests that they might be a more effective and efficient learning approach than writing equivalent code, especially ...

In my research, I employ a highly qualitative, narrative methodology to explore the sense students make of their own educational experiences within their wider learning trajectories. By taking such a holistic perspective on a Computing Education, I hope ...

A Modeling-based pedagogical approach for curriculum design can provide useful framework for teaching computing concepts, particularly in courses that target novices. While modeling is a foundational pillar of computing, it is not typically a focus of ...

Problem solving through effective plan decomposition and composition continues to be exceedingly difficult for novice programmers. This is exacerbated by the fact that these strategies are usually implicit in instruction: students are left to figure out ...

There is growing recognition in the computer science education research community that supporting students in identity formation for computer science is an essential step toward broadening participation in computing. Because students begin establishing ...

Recent empirical results suggest that the instructional material used to teach computing may actually overload students' cognitive abilities. Better designed materials may enhance learning by reducing unnecessary load. Subgoal labels have been shown to ...

When students talk about their university experiences, they identify particular events as being significant in their development. We look at the experiences relating to coursework and career of two students who were interviewed throughout their ...