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

Issues in designing learning by teaching systems

Abstract: Learning by teaching systems are a relatively recent approach to designing Intelligent Learning Environments that place learners in the role of tutors. These systems are based on the practice of peer tutoring where students take on defined roles of tutor and tutee. An architecture for learning by teaching systems is described that does not require the domain model of an Intelligent Tutoring System. However a mutual communication language is needed and is defined by a conceptual syntax that delimits the domain content of the dialogue. An example learning by teaching system is described for the domain of qualitative economics. The construction and testing of this system inform a discussion of the major design issues involved: the nature of the learnt model, the form of the conceptual syntax, the control of the interaction and the possible introduction of domain knowledge. 1

Mixed-initiative approaches to on-device mobile game design

Playing casual games is a wildly popular activity on smartphones. However, designing casual games is done by a smaller group of people, usually on desktop computers, using professional development tools. Our goal is to bring these activities closer together, in terms of who does them and how they do them. Our Gamika Technology platform is a 2D physics-based mobile game design environment. It comprises a 284-dimensional parametric design space, and poses mobile game design as the problem of navigating this space. We have built three mobile apps thus far to experiment with on-device, mixed-initiative navigation of the Gamika design space and some of its subspaces. We describe these apps here in terms of the initiatives that go into making a game with them, and how these are split between people and underlying AI software. Our overall goal is to democratise game design, so that anyone and everyone can make casual games directly on their mobile phones or tablets

A Transcendental Phenomenological Study of Novice Elementary Teachers\u27 Perceived Ability to Implement the North Carolina Multi-Tiered System of Support with Fidelity

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to gain a deeper understanding of novice elementary teachers’ perceived ability to implement the North Carolina Multi-Tiered System of Support (NC MTSS) model with fidelity in a suburban North Carolina school district. For the purposes of this research, fidelity was generally defined as the effective application of the tenets of NC MTSS according to evidence-based best practices as well as federal, state, and local policy (Hill, King, Lemons, & Partanen, 2012). Conducted under the leadership of Dr. Frank Bailey, this study sought to determine the extent to which a sample of 12 elementary teachers, each with three or fewer years of experience, feel able to fully and effectively implement NC MTSS in their suburban North Carolina schools. The theories that have guided this study are Bandura’s (1983) Social Cognitive Theory of Efficacy and Mitzel’s (1960) Theory of Teaching and Learning, as they establish a connection between educators’ self-efficacy and the likelihood of an initiative being implemented with fidelity. Thus, gaining a deeper understanding of teachers’ self-perceived ability to implement NC MTSS can improve implementation by informing teacher preparation, in-service professional development programming, and related support structures. Data was collected using unstructured and semi-structured interviews, as well as document analyses. Axial coding and conceptualization using Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) constant-comparative method were to identify and isolate emergent themes. Results showed that participants’ perceptions of self-efficacy are mixed. Half of participants conveyed moderate to high levels of self-efficacy, while half exhibited relatively low levels

Application of backend database contents and structure to the design of spoken dialog services

Current development platforms for designing spoken dialog services feature different kinds of strategies to help designers build, test, and deploy their applications. In general, these platforms are made up of several assistants that handle the different design stages (e.g. definition of the dialog flow, prompt and grammar definition, database connection, or to debug and test the running of the application). In spite of all the advances in this area, in general the process of designing spoken-based dialog services is a time consuming task that needs to be accelerated. In this paper we describe a complete development platform that reduces the design time by using different types of acceleration strategies based on using information from the data model structure and database contents, as well as cumulative information obtained throughout the successive steps in the design. Thanks to these accelerations, the interaction with the platform is simplified and the design is reduced, in most cases, to simple confirmations to the “proposals” that the platform automatically provides at each stage. Different kinds of proposals are available to complete the application flow such as the possibility of selecting which information slots should be requested to the user together, predefined templates for common dialogs, the most probable actions that make up each state defined in the flow, different solutions to solve specific speech-modality problems such as the presentation of the lists of retrieved results after querying the backend database. The platform also includes accelerations for creating speech grammars and prompts, and the SQL queries for accessing the database at runtime. Finally, we will describe the setup and results obtained in a simultaneous summative, subjective and objective evaluations with different designers used to test the usability of the proposed accelerations as well as their contribution to reducing the design time and interaction

A Case Study Investigating How Art Education Fosters Collaboration in an Urban Environment Through the Lens of Public Pedagogy

This case study examines how one particular after-school arts program in an urban environment bridges the gap between a university campus and the community it serves, creating opportunities for collaboration via the arts. The study was conducted at a community center run by Buffalo State. Over the course of the study, ten interviews were conducted with a variety of people connected to the Community Arts Center’s (CAC) arts programs, including partners in the public arts initiative. The data was collected and analyzed over the course of eight weeks through the lens of Henry Giroux’s public pedagogy, which focuses on educational processes outside of school walls. My goal was to learn more about how the arts program fostered collaboration, and how it functioned to provide free arts programming to neighborhood children. I collected data primarily through interviews, but also through observations, questionnaires, and documents. After collecting data, I spent a great deal of time reading through, coding, and grouping by the themes that emerged. Among the findings were: the asset of a diverse community, the freedom of art outside of school, the success of Grant Street Global Voices, reciprocity between campus and community, and how to build strong partnerships. The findings represent a broad range of the possibilities that occur when looking at a community’s offerings through an assets-based model rather than a deficit model. They showed that with the power of communication and the inclusion of people at a grass-roots level, arts programming can act as a springboard for growth in community services and in partnerships, creating a network of support

Do Pair Programming Approaches Transcend Coding? Measuring Agile Attitudes in Diverse Information Systems Courses

Agile methods and approaches such as eXtreme programming (XP) have become the norm for successful organizations not only in the software industry but also for businesses seeking to improve internal software processes. Pair programming in some form is touted as a major functionality and productivity improvement. However, numerous studies show that simply placing two programmers side by side in front of a single computer screen is not enough. We must look at other factors such as programmer expertise, project preparation, and perceived solution quality to understand pair programming’s promises and pitfalls. In our study, we apply tailored programming challenges to a multifaceted group of first-year through senior Information Systems (IS) and non-IS majors to analyze how participant attitudes and perceived benefits of pair programming change from pre- to post-study, as well as determine whether the quality and functionality of the solutions differ across education levels and disciplines. Our findings show a strong interaction effect of gender and major composition (CIS vs. non-CIS majors) in all four dimensions of the ATMI attitude scale. Findings also suggest that experience in problem solving and solution formation are more important than prior specific domain knowledge. Finally, participants’ perceived ability, sense of accomplishment, and completion of the assigned work, regardless of background or demographic, determined their performance outcome on the pair-programming tasks, which suggests that not all forms of attitude and perceived benefits contribute to the performance outcome

The ABC of Pair Programming: Gender-dependent Attitude, Behavior and Code of Young Learners

Young learners are increasingly introduced to programming, and one of the main challenges for educators is to achieve learning success while also creating enthusiasm. As it is particularly difficult to achieve this enthusiasm initially in young females, prior work has identified gender-specific differences in the programming behavior of young learners. Since pair programming, which turns programming into a more sociable activity, has been proposed as an approach to support programming education, in this paper we aim to investigate whether similar gender-specific characteristics can also be observed during pair programming. Therefore, we designed a gender-neutral introductory SCRATCH programming course tailored for integrating pair programming principles, and conducted it with a total of 139 students aged between 8 and 14 years. To identify gender-dependent differences and similarities, we measure the attitude towards programming and the course setting, observe the behavior of the students while programming, and analyze the code of the programs for different gender-combinations. Overall, our study demonstrates that pair programming is well suited for young learners and results in a positive attitude. While the resulting programs are similar in quality and complexity independent of gender, differences are evident when it comes to the compliance to pair programming roles, the exploration of code, and the creative customization of programs. These findings contribute to an in-depth understanding of social and technical gender specifics of pair programming, and provide educators with resources and guidance for implementing gender-sensitive pair programming in the classroom