Modern robots, like today's smartphones, are complex devices with intricate software systems. Introductory robot programming courses must evolve to reflect this reality, by teaching students to make use of the sophisticated tools their robots provide rather than reimplementing basic algorithms. This paper focuses on teaching with Tekkotsu, an…

We propose an expanded definition of Threshold Concepts (TCs) that requires the successful acquisition and internalisation not only of knowledge, but also its practical elaboration in the domains of applied strategies and mental models. This richer definition allows us to clarify the relationship between TCs and Fundamental Ideas, and to account…

The purpose of this study was twofold: to investigate students' concept images about class, object, and their relationship and to help them enhance their learning of these notions with a visualization tool. Fifty-six second-year university students participated in the study. To investigate his/her concept images, the researcher developed a survey…

Previous studies have shown that students with low knowledge understand and learn better from more cohesive texts, whereas high-knowledge students have been shown to learn better from texts of lower cohesion. This study examines whether high-knowledge readers in computer science benefit from a text of low cohesion. Undergraduate students (n = 65)…

Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is not an easy subject to learn. There are many challenges confronting students when studying OOAD. Students have particular difficulty abstracting real-world problems within the context of OOAD. They are unable to effectively build object-oriented (OO) models from the problem domain because they…

We used both student interviews and diagnostic testing to reveal students' misconceptions about number representations in computing systems. This article reveals that students who have passed an undergraduate level computer organization course still possess surprising misconceptions about positional notations, two's complement representation, and…

This article provides a review of educational research literature focused on pair programming in the undergraduate computer science curriculum. Research suggests that the benefits of pair programming include increased success rates in introductory courses, increased retention in the major, higher quality software, higher student confidence in…

Research shows that female and male students in undergraduate computer science programs view computer culture differently. Female students are interested more in the use of computers than in doing programming, whereas male students see computer science mainly as a programming activity. The overall purpose of our research was not to find new…

Women are seriously under-represented in computer science and computer engineering (CS/CE) education and, thus, in the information technology (IT) workforce in the USA. This is a grim situation for both the women whose potential remains unutilized and the US society which is dependent on IT. This article examines the reasons behind low enrollment…

This article describes a holistic approach to designing an introductory, object-oriented programming course. The design is grounded in constructivism and pedagogy of phenomenography. We use constructive alignment as the framework to align assessments, learning, and teaching with planned learning outcomes. We plan learning and teaching activities,…

This article reports on a study of student engagement in the first year of their undergraduate information and communication technology (ICT) degree at an Australian university. The study was conducted at Monash University in the four undergraduate ICT degrees of the Faculty of Information Technology. The study draws on data collected from staff…

One of the subjects that undergraduate students learning Object Oriented (OO) design find hard to apply is the construction of class hierarchies in general, and the use of interface classes in particular. The design process requires decomposition and reconstruction of problems in order to model software classes. The common attributes and behaviors…

Conventional introduction to computer science presents individual algorithmic paradigms in the context of specific, prototypical problems. To complement this algorithm-centric instruction, this study additionally advocates problem-centric instruction. I present an original problem drawn from students' life that is simply stated but provides rich…

As part of the CETL ALiC initiative (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Active Learning in Computing), undergraduate computing science students at Newcastle and Durham universities participated in a cross-site team software development project. To ensure we offer adequate resources to support this collaboration, we conducted an…

This paper examines students' pre-college experience with computers. It finds significant gender differences in how students develop interest in computers; exposure to computers at home; availability of computers in high schools; and high-school preparations for college study in a computing field. The paper has a number of implications to improve…