Modeling Elementary Students\u27 Computer Science Outcomes With In-School and Out-of-School Factors

This two-paper dissertation explores factors influencing the attitudes of Grade 5 students who are learning computer science (CS) in schools. It statistically examines the effects of out and in-school factors on students’ attitudes toward computing. The first paper of this dissertation examines the influence of parental support as perceived by the students on their interest and their self-assessed ability to engage in computer programming, thus underscoring the crucial role of parental support on learners’ attitudes. It also investigates how involving families in CS activities by sending a CS-themed board game influences students’ interest. The study finds that perceptions of parental support positively influence students’ interest and their self-assessed ability to engage in computer programming. It also finds that sending CS artifacts home can significantly mediate the influence of parental support on students’ interest in programming. The second paper focuses on developing reliable measurements of students’ perceptions of mathematics and CS-integrated instructional activities. These measures are called exit tickets and are used to collect immediate student responses relating to their experiences after instructional activities. Building on prior research, this paper statistically examines whether students’ exit ticket responses predict self-assessed ability, interest, and identification with CS. Results show that perceived enjoyment reported on exit tickets significantly predicts self-assessed ability, interest, and identification with CS. Perceived ease also significantly predicts self-assessed ability. The remaining correlations between exit ticket measures and post-survey measures are not significant. The findings suggest that student exit tickets are effective tools to gauge engagement and correlate with student attitudes toward computing. Specifically, students who report finding the lesson enjoyable and easy are more likely to express a positive attitude toward programming. This suggests that brief exit ticket surveys could serve as effective indicators of student engagement, potentially replacing longer surveys. Identifying the factors that shape students’ attitudes toward CS provides valuable insights into the design of instructional methods, curricula, and family engagement strategies. Such initiatives can foster a positive attitude among young learners towards CS, significantly contributing to shaping their beliefs and challenging stereotypes associated with computing

Pro-Cyclical Effect of Sovereign Rating Changes on Stock Returns: A Fact or Factoid?

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article examines the effect of changes in sovereign credit ratings and their outlook on the stock market returns of European countries at different phases of business cycle. Using standard four-factor model, it records a significant average marginal effect of credit rating announcements on stock market returns. Both magnitude and significance of the effect vary with business cycle and across announcement types. However, we do not find evidence of pro-cyclical effect of sovereign rating and outlook changes on stock returns. Our results show that stock markets react more negatively to rating downgrades in recovery phases and more positively to rating upgrades in contractionary period. Both results are statistically significant and robust to various sensitivity tests

The demand for eurozone stocks and bonds in a time-varying asset allocation framework

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper analyzes the short and long-run demand for traditional financial asset classes in eleven founding eurozone members. Our sample period starts from the introduction of euro till 2017. We calculate the welfare losses stemming from ignoring the demand for domestic and eurozone equities and bonds, for various levels of risk aversion. Our results show that the bonds of eurozone countries are, in general, desirable for short-run only. However, in Ireland, Portugal and Spain the bonds are desirable for both short-run and long-run investment horizons. Stocks exhibit both short-run and long-run desirability for all countries except Greece. The Greek stocks are desirable for short- run only

Geographical Evaluation of Socio-economic Condition of Sargodha City to Measure Urban Poverty

The current study presents the socio economic conditions of people of Sargodha city to analyze the urban poverty level. Research was accomplished during the year of 2016-2018. Urban poverty is a burning social issue in world when a person do not succeeds to carry out his family needs and wants. A survey was conducted in eleven different colonies and 188 households were visited. Poverty level was scrutinized according to international poverty line less than 1 Dollar per day. During the field survey it was perceived that 17 percent of the households have income of less than 1 Dollar per day and they were real poor. Different parameters were examined like slums, dependency ratio, income, transportation, drinking water scheme, sewerage system and literacy rate. These parameters have compared with poverty to analyze the affordability and living condition of people. It was examined that there were several reasons for poverty in city like unemployment / low income, less education, high dependency ratio etc. Most of the people have large families but low income due to not as much of education and more dependent people in households. It was also suggested that Government should make better living conditions for people by providing technical skills to uneducated person to diminish unemployment and should advance the sanitation problems for better lifestyle

Geographical Evaluation of Socio-economic Condition of Sargodha City to Measure Urban Poverty

The current study presents the socio economic conditions of people of Sargodha city to analyze the urban poverty level. Research was accomplished during the year of 2016-2018. Urban poverty is a burning social issue in world when a person do not succeeds to carry out his family needs and wants. A survey was conducted in eleven different colonies and 188 households were visited. Poverty level was scrutinized according to international poverty line less than 1 Dollar per day. During the field survey it was perceived that 17 percent of the households have income of less than 1 Dollar per day and they were real poor. Different parameters were examined like slums, dependency ratio, income, transportation, drinking water scheme, sewerage system and literacy rate. These parameters have compared with poverty to analyze the affordability and living condition of people. It was examined that there were several reasons for poverty in city like unemployment / low income, less education, high dependency ratio etc. Most of the people have large families but low income due to not as much of education and more dependent people in households. It was also suggested that Government should make better living conditions for people by providing technical skills to uneducated person to diminish unemployment and should advance the sanitation problems for better lifestyle

Exploring Practical Measures as an Approach for Measuring Elementary Students’ Attitudes Towards Computer Science

This paper presents a novel approach for predicting the outcomes of elementary students’ participation in computer science (CS) instruction by using exit tickets, a type of practical measure, where students provide rapid feedback on their instructional experiences. Such feedback can help teachers to inform ongoing teaching and instructional practices. We fit a Structural Equation Model to examine whether students\u27 perceptions of enjoyment, ease, and connections between mathematics and CS in an integrated lesson predicted their affective outcomes in self-efficacy, interest, and CS identity, collected in a pre- post- survey. We found that practical measures can validly measure student experiences

Co-Designing Elementary-Level Computer Science and Mathematics Lessons: An Expansive Framing Approach

This study examines how a rural-serving school district aimed to provide elementary-level computer science (CS) by offering instruction during students’ computer lab time. As part of a research-practice partnership, cross-context mathematics and CS lessons were co-designed to expansively frame and highlight connections across – as opposed to integration within – the two subjects. Findings indicated that most students who engaged with the lessons across the lab and classroom contexts reported finding the lessons interesting, seeing connections to their mathematics classes, and understanding the programming. In contrast, a three-level logistic regression model showed that students who only learned about mathematics connections within the CS lessons (thus not in a cross-context way) reported statistically significant lower levels of interest, connections, and understanding

Cache Code Math Computer Lab Lesson Plans: Repeated Addition & Multiplication

This document entails a number of computer lab concepts and accompanying activities for fifth grade students. The activities are intended to be implemented in conjunction with the mathematics lessons Cache Code Math September Unit: Repeats in Math and Programming and Cache Code Math Computer Lab Lesson Plans: Exponents and Repeats . Here the mathematics concepts of repeated addition and multiplication are explored using the computer coding concept of repeat loop blocks

Facilitating Mathematics and Computer Science Connections: A Cross-Curricular Approach

In the United States, school curricula are often created and taught with distinct boundaries between disciplines. This division between curricular areas may serve as a hindrance to students\u27 long-term learning and their ability to generalize. In contrast, cross-curricular pedagogy provides a way for students to think beyond the classroom walls and make important connections across disciplines. The purpose of this paper is a theoretical reflection on our use of Expansive Framing in our design of lessons across learning environments within the school. We provide a narrative account of our early work in using this theoretical framework to co-plan and enact interdisciplinary mathematics and computer science (CS) tasks with a team of elementary school educators and school district personnel. The unit focuses on the concepts of exponents in mathematics and repeat loops as a control structure in computer science. Using a narrative approach, we describe what occurred during the collaborative planning of lessons and subsequent enactments in two fifth-grade classrooms and one computer lab and provide a practitioner-oriented account of our experience

Cache Code Math: Fractions, Functions, & For-Loops

These instructional guides are used in the 5th-grade computer labs in conjunction with JavaScript/CodeHS. Computer Lab Specialists are provided with step-by-step instructions and tutorial videos to teach students how to use functions and for-loops to write programs for Karel the Dog to model multiplying fractions. These lessons support learning the following CS ideas: repeat/for, functions, algorithmic thinking, and abstraction. These activities are meant to be delivered after the “Fractions, Functions, & For-Loops: Preparatory Activities” and in conjunction with the mathematics lesson plans, “Cache Code Math: Fractions Unit.