Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Early Developmental Activities and Computing Proficiency

As countries adopt computing education for all pupils from primary school upwards, there are challenging indicators: significant proportions of students who choose to study computing at universities fail the introductory courses, and the evidence for links between formal education outcomes and success in CS is limited. Yet, as we know, some students succeed without prior computing experience. Why is this? <br/><br/> Some argue for an innate ability, some for motivation, some for the discrepancies between the expectations of instructors and students, and some – simply – for how programming is being taught. All agree that becoming proficient in computing is not easy. Our research takes a novel view on the problem and argues that some of that success is influenced by early childhood experiences outside formal education. <br/><br/> In this study, we analyzed over 1300 responses to a multi-institutional and multi-national survey that we developed. The survey captures enjoyment of early developmental activities such as childhood toys, games and pastimes between the ages 0 — 8 as well as later life experiences with computing. We identify unifying features of the computing experiences in later life, and attempt to link these computing experiences to the childhood activities. <br/><br/> The analysis indicates that computing proficiency should be seen from multiple viewpoints, including both skill-level and confidence. It shows that particular early childhood experiences are linked to parts of computing proficiency, namely those related to confidence with problem solving using computing technology. These are essential building blocks for more complex use. We recognize issues in the experimental design that may prevent our data showing a link between early activities and more complex computing skills, and suggest adjustments. Ultimately, it is hoped that this line of research will feed in to early years and primary education, and thereby improve computing education for all

XinuPi3: Teaching Multicore Concepts Using Embedded Xinu

As computer platforms become more advanced, the need to teach advanced computing concepts grows accordingly. This paper addresses one such need by presenting XinuPi3, a port of the lightweight instructional operating system Embedded Xinu to the Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi 3 improves upon previous generations of inexpensive, credit card-sized computers by including a quad-core, ARM-based processor, opening the door for educators to demonstrate essential aspects of modern computing like inter-core communication and genuine concurrency. Embedded Xinu has proven to be an effective teaching tool for demonstrating low-level concepts on single-core platforms, and it is currently used to teach a range of systems courses at multiple universities. As of this writing, no other bare metal educational operating system supports multicore computing. XinuPi3 provides a suitable learning environment for beginners on genuinely concurrent hardware. This paper provides an overview of the key features of the XinuPi3 system, as well as the novel embedded system education experiences it makes possible

Visual and Textual Programming Languages: A Systematic Review of the Literature

It is well documented, and has been the topic of much research, that Computer Science courses tend to have higher than average drop out rates at third level. This is a problem that needs to be addressed with urgency but also caution. The required number of Computer Science graduates is growing every year but the number of graduates is not meeting this demand and one way that this problem can be alleviated is to encourage students at an early age towards studying Computer Science courses. This paper presents a systematic literature review on the role of visual and textual programming languages when learning to program, particularly as a first programming language. The approach is systematic, in that a structured search of electronic resources has been conducted, and the results are presented and quantitatively analysed. This study will give insight into whether or not the current approaches to teaching young learners programming are viable, and examines what we can do to increase the interest and retention of these students as they progress through their education.Comment: 18 pages (including 2 bibliography pages), 3 figure

A Systematic Map for Improving Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Operating Systems Courses

Operating Systems (OS) is an important area of knowledge included in virtually allundergraduate computing curricula and in some engineering curricula as well. Teaching and learning anOS undergraduate course have always been a challenge. Several different approaches have been used for OSteaching and learning. Nevertheless, it is not easy for a teacher to choose one of them. No guidelines areavailable on how to choose one of them to match the specific objectives of each OS course. The objective ofthis paper is to analyze the approaches that have been used to improve OS teaching and learning by applyinga systematic map. In particular, we consider the following dimensions: learning objectives, assessment,empirical study, methodology, and mode (face-to-face, online, or blended). The systematic map devisedin this paper is focused on the time span from 1995 to 2017 and considered six of the major publicationson the Computer Science Education. We considered three journals (theJournal of Engineering Education,the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ONEDUCATION, and theInternational Journal of Engineering Education) and threeconferences (the ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education—SIGCSE, the Conferenceon Computing Education Research—ITiCSE, and the International Conference on Computing EducationResearch—Koli). A total of 55 papers were included in the study after performing a search based on theinclusion/exclusion criteria. Nine approaches to improve OS teaching and learning were identified andanalyzed. Furthermore, the implications for OS instructors and for research in this field are discussed.2018-1

What Do We Think We Think We Are Doing?: Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Programming

Metacognition and self-regulation are popular areas of interest in programming education, and they have been extensively researched outside of computing. While computing education researchers should draw upon this prior work, programming education is unique enough that we should explore the extent to which prior work applies to our context. The goal of this systematic review is to support research on metacognition and self-regulation in programming education by synthesizing relevant theories, measurements, and prior work on these topics. By reviewing papers that mention metacognition or self-regulation in the context of programming, we aim to provide a benchmark of our current progress towards understanding these topics and recommendations for future research. In our results, we discuss eight common theories that are widely used outside of computing education research, half of which are commonly used in computing education research. We also highlight 11 theories on related constructs (e.g., self-efficacy) that have been used successfully to understand programming education. Towards measuring metacognition and self-regulation in learners, we discuss seven instruments and protocols that have been used and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. To benchmark the current state of research, we examined papers that primarily studied metacognition and self-regulation in programming education and synthesize the reported interventions used and results from that research. While the primary intended contribution of this paper is to support research, readers will also learn about developing and supporting metacognition and self-regulation of students in programming courses

What Are Cybersecurity Education Papers About? A Systematic Literature Review of SIGCSE and ITiCSE Conferences

Cybersecurity is now more important than ever, and so is education in this field. However, the cybersecurity domain encompasses an extensive set of concepts, which can be taught in different ways and contexts. To understand the state of the art of cybersecurity education and related research, we examine papers from the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium and ACM ITiCSE conferences. From 2010 to 2019, a total of 1,748 papers were published at these conferences, and 71 of them focus on cybersecurity education. The papers discuss courses, tools, exercises, and teaching approaches. For each paper, we map the covered topics, teaching context, evaluation methods, impact, and the community of authors. We discovered that the technical topic areas are evenly covered (the most prominent being secure programming, network security, and offensive security), and human aspects, such as privacy and social engineering, are present as well. The interventions described in SIGCSE and ITiCSE papers predominantly focus on tertiary education in the USA. The subsequent evaluation mostly consists of collecting students' subjective perceptions via questionnaires. However, less than a third of the papers provide supplementary materials for other educators, and none of the authors published their dataset. Our results are relevant for instructors, researchers, and anyone new in the field of cybersecurity education, since they provide orientation in the area, a synthesis of trends, and implications for further research. The information we collected and synthesized from individual papers are organized in a publicly available dataset