BACKGROUND. This full research paper focuses on understanding research foci (what) and student participants (who) in primary and secondary (K-12) computer science (CS) education research (CER). With the growing interest in CS education at primary and secondary schools, there is a growing body of research. Unfortunately, there is limited analysis of research against the broader education ecosystem. Given the significant contributions in CER in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, a comparative analysis of research between the two regions can identify strengths and opportunities for each. RESEARCH QUESTIONS. Our research questions for this study were: When comparing using the CAPE framework, what similarities and differences across areas of study exist among research studies with student participants from the UK and the U.S. ?and What similarities and differences exist in reporting of participant demographics between studies with student participants from the UK and the U.S.? METHODOLOGY. We conducted a systematic mapping review of K-12 CS education research publications (2019–2022). We used the Capacity, Access, Participation, and Experience (CAPE) framework to group publications that studies similar topic areas. We then ran descriptive statistics (counts and percentages across number of codes and also number of publications) to identify commonalities and differences between the regions with respect to areas of focus and student participant demographics, FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS. Our results suggest that dominant-norming likely exists in our corpus of CER that needs mitigating. Studies with UK participants reported prior experi-ence and gender of participants significantly more, while those in the US were twice as likely to report participant race/ethnicity significantly more. Research focused on pedagogy, the topics of student engagement, and content knowledge were studied more frequently than other areas in both regions. There is limited research related to funding for computing education, school-based extracurricular activities, and social-familial influences, all of which are critical for understanding their impacts on students.

Motivation. We have created a modular project-based learning curriculum, Computer Science Frontiers (CSF) [1, 8], for secondary students in attempts to increase the persistence of computer science (CS) students in higher education. The CSF course is divided into four different modules (Distributed Computing, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Software Engineering), each centered around a topic typically introduced to students only in higher education. Using the block-based programming environment NetsBlox [4], students are able to access various Application Programming Interfaces related to their interests [2, 3]. The goal of this course is to increase student interest in CS during high school - when first career choices occur [7] - in hopes they will persist in CS during their undergraduate studies.

Pair programming is a common collaboration method used in primary and secondary computer science (CS) education. Despite its many benefits, pair programming has been found to create inequitable learning environments in these settings. In this proposal, I discuss my plan to investigate the equity and effectiveness of a new pair programming method for block-based programming environments, called Puzzle. When using this method, the blocks in the programming environment are partitioned between two students. I will use a mixed methods approach to analyze student attitudes, self-assessed behaviors, learning gains, and conversational dialog. I expect this new method to increase students’ enjoyment when learning to program and to increase student interest in CS.

Students can have widely varying experiences while working on CS2 coding projects. Challenging experiences can lead to lower motivation and less success in completing these assignments. In this paper, we identify the common struggles CS2 students face while working on course projects and examine whether or not there is evidence of improvement in these areas of struggle between projects. While previous work has been conducted on understanding the importance of self-regulated learning to student success, it has not been fully investigated in the scope of CS2 coursework. We share our observations on investigating student struggles while working on coding projects through their self-reported response to a project reflection form. We apply emergent coding to identify student struggles at three points during the course and compare them against student actions in the course, such as project start times and office hours participation, to identify if students were overcoming these struggles. Through our coding and analysis we have found that while a majority of students encounter struggles with time management and debugging of failing tests, students tend to emphasize wanting to improve their time management skills in future coding assignments.

Research Problem. The CAPE Framework has been used in multiple studies to situate capacity-building efforts within schools to offer equitable student access to and participation in K-12 computer science (CS) education. CAPE defines four major components of capacity, access, participation and experience. However, to define what each of the CAPE components can entail, well-defined subcomponents are needed.

Historically, female students have shown low interest in the field of computer science. Previous computer science curricula have failed to address the lack of female-centered computer science activities, such as socially relevant and real-life applications. Our new summer camp curriculum introduces the topics of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and other real-world subjects to engage high school girls in computing by connecting lessons to relevant and cutting edge technologies. Topics range from social media bots, sentiment of natural language in different media, and the role of AI in criminal justice, and focus on programming activities in the NetsBlox and Python programming languages. Summer camp teachers were prepared in a week-long pedagogy and peer-teaching centered professional development program where they concurrently learned and practiced teaching the curriculum to one another. Then, pairs of teachers led students in learning through hands-on AI and ML activities in a half-day, two-week summer camp. In this paper, we discuss the curriculum development and implementation, as well as survey feedback from both teachers and students.

Motivation. There are countless factors that contribute to academic achievement [3, 6, 7, 8]. For K-12 computer science (CS) education, these building blocks of student success are broadly captured in the four components of the CAPE framework, which considers the capacity for, access to, participation in, and experiences of students learning CS through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion [4]. However, there is currently little published research that identifies factors within each component that influence the education ecosystem that students rely on to participate and have positive learning experiences in CS [10].

Previous research has shown the collaboration method of pair programming (PP) can increase student pass rates and intentions to learn computer science (CS). However, results in previous K-12 studies show PP can create inequitable learning. Therefore, I plan to investigate which collaboration modes, specifically, Divvy up and Puzzle, help promote equitable learning environments and collaborative behaviors, especially for girls, in secondary CS education.

Our researchers seek to support students in building block-based programming projects that are motivating and engaging as well as valuable practice in learning to code. A difficult part of the programming process is planning. In this research, we explore how novice programmers used a custom-built planning tool, PlanIT, contrasted against how they used storyboarding when planning games. In a three-part study, we engaged novices in planning and programming three games: a maze game, a break-out game, and a mashup of the two. In a set of five case studies, we show how five pairs of students approached the planning and programming of these three games, illustrating that students felt more creative when storyboarding rather than using PlanIT. We end with a discussion on the implications of this work for designing supports for novices to plan open-ended projects.

The Computer Science Frontiers (CSF) project introduces teachers to the topics of artificial intelligence and distributed computing to engage their female students in computing by connecting lessons to relevant cutting edge technologies. Application topics include social media and news articles, as well as climate change, the arts (movies, music, and museum collections), and public health/medicine. CSF educators are prepared in a pedagogy and peer-teaching centered professional development program where they simultaneously learn and teach distributed computing, artificial intelligence, and internet of things lessons to each other. These professional developments allow educators to hone in on their teaching skills of these new topics and gain confidence in their ability to teach new computer science materials before running several activities with their students in the academic year classroom. In this workshop, teachers participating in the CS Frontiers professional development will give testimonials discussing their experiences teaching these topics in a two week summer camp. Attendees will then try out three computing activities, one from each Computer Science Frontiers module. Finally, there will be a question and answer session.

This article examines the grading process and profiles of secondary computer science teachers as they assess block-based student programming submissions. Through an iterative design process, we have created a new tool, Gradesnap, which streamlines how teachers can open, review, and evaluate student submissions within the same interface. Our study compares teachers’ grading processes using the different assessment formats, so that we can understand how their grading processes can be augmented or supported to reduce ’pain points’ and to enable teachers to provide more constructive and formative feedback for students. We use a case study approach to examine the experiences and outcomes of four secondary computer science teachers with varied teaching and assessment experience, when grading as usual, grading with a rubric, and grading with GradeSnap. Our study shows that when participants use GradeSnap, they are able to give supportive comments to lower performing and borderline students who need critical feedback to better understand misconceptions. We also discovered that the different grading processes provided a vehicle for reflection for some teachers in understanding their grading goals and how they enact them. This research is the first to examine teacher grading processes for computer science, and highlights the need for teacher preparation and support for providing programming feedback and assessment.