We studied the impact of introducing first-year computer science (CS) students to ethical thinking about the social justice impacts of data collection, tracking, bias, internet privacy, and competitive "real world" system design and critique activities. While basic content was consistent for all, one group was involved throughout the…

The 1980s and 1990s saw a robust connection between computer science education and cognitive psychology as researchers worked to understand how students learn to program. More recently, academic disciplines such as science and engineering have begun drawing on cognitive psychology research and theories of learning to create instructional materials…

Problem: K-12 teachers face many challenges when teaching a new subject like computer science (CS). They are often far removed from the research being conducted to identify evidence-driven solutions to these challenges. Likewise, researchers are also often removed from the challenges of classroom practices that teachers face when teaching CS.…

This paper explores a major theoretical framework from psychology, Dual Process Theory (DPT), which has received surprisingly little attention in the computing education literature. DPT postulates the existence of two qualitatively different kinds of cognitive systems, a fast, intuitive "System 1" and a slow, reflective "System…

Helping students learn to identify and respond to situations involving discrimination is important, especially in fields like Computer Science where there is evidence of an unwelcoming climate that disproportionately drives underrepresented students out of the field. While students should not be considered responsible for fixing issues around…

The Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (APCSP) course was introduced in 2016 to address long-standing gender and racial/ethnic disparities in the United States among students taking Advanced Placement Computer Science (APCS) in high school, as well as among those who pursued computing majors in college. Although APCSP has drawn a more…

Computational Thinking (CT), entailing both domain-general and domain-specific skills, is a competency fundamental to computing education and beyond. However, as a cross-domain competency, appropriate assessment design and method remain equivocal. Indeed, the majority of the existing assessments have a predominant focus on measuring programming…

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of Minecraft-based coding activities on computational thinking (CT) of middle school students. In the study, CT was conceptualized so that it encapsulates not only the knowledge of computational concepts (e.g., loops and conditionals) but also the use of CT practices (e.g., testing and debugging).…

Student-directed projects--projects in which students have individual control over what they create and how to create it--are a promising practice for supporting the development of conceptual understanding and personal interest in K-12 computer science classrooms. In this article, we explore a central (and perhaps counterintuitive) design…

There is little empirical research related to how elementary students develop computational thinking (CT) and how they apply CT in problem-solving. To address this gap in knowledge, this study made use of learning trajectories (LTs; hypothesized learning goals, progressions, and activities) in CT concept areas such as sequence, repetition,…

With the number of jobs in computer occupations on the rise, there is a greater need for computer science (CS) graduates than ever. At the same time, most CS departments across the country are only seeing 25-30% of women students in their classes, meaning that we are failing to draw interest from a large portion of the population. In this work, we…

Two studies investigated change in computer science (CS) students' implicit intelligence beliefs. Across both studies, we found that the strength of incremental and entity beliefs changed across time. In Study 1, we found that incremental beliefs decreased and entity beliefs increased across the semester. Change in implicit intelligence beliefs…

Artificial Intelligence and its sub-disciplines are becoming increasingly relevant in numerous areas of academia as well as industry and can now be considered a core area of Computer Science. The Higher Education sector are offering more courses in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence than ever before. However, there is a lack of research…

Despite increasing demands for skilled workers within the technological domain, there is still a deficit in the number of graduates in computing fields (computer science, information technology, and computer engineering). Understanding the factors that contribute to students' motivation and persistence is critical to helping educators,…

There continues to be an increase in enrollments in various computing programs at academic institutions due to many job opportunities available in the information, communication, and technology sectors. This enrollment surge has presented several challenges in many Computer Science (CS), Information Technology (IT), and Software Engineering (SE)…