This article builds on prior work that aims to measure computational learning (CL) during middle school. Since game computational sophistication (GCS) has been used as a proxy for a student’s engagement in CL we build on their model to more completely describe the relationship between different types of building blocks of computer games and GCS. In doing so, we present a single quantitative measurement for GCS. Our model, called GCS 2.0 , has face validity for 39 games, each programmed by a pair of middle school children. We choose four of these games, two with high GCS and two with low GCS, and discuss the computational building blocks found in each game. We do this to help the reader better understand our measurement of GCS and its relationship to CL.

It is widely believed that there are educational benefits to making computer games, but there is no systematic review of research on this topic. This article describes a meta-synthesis of research on children designing and programming computer games that investigates the extent to which there is evidence of benefits for computer science learning and motivation. Over 400 articles were identified, and 68 articles met the inclusion criteria. A systematic analysis and synthesis across studies showed some evidence that computer game design and programming can lead to changes in programming knowledge, problem solving, and computer science attitudes and confidence. However, most of the evidence described engagement in computing-related practices and did not measure learning. The findings were mostly positive, although several studies noted more negative attitudes toward programming after making games. The results were similar across different pedagogical approaches, although social interaction may provide unique opportunities for computer science learning. The synthesis resulted in a list of design elements for studying computer game design and programming activities; these can be used to increase the availability of evidence about learning. The article concludes with the identification of gaps in the research and suggestions for additional research.

Pair programming is considered a best practice since it has been shown to reduce the gender gap and increases confidence for university students in introductory computer programming courses. However, little is known about what it looks like in middle school. This study was designed to provide detailed descriptions of what pair programming looks like, how it varies across demographic groups, and how it changes over time. The data presented in this poster is from a subset of a larger study (81 middle school students) which consists of 66 (28 girls; 38 boys) students (55% Latino/a; 23% White) who worked in 33 same-gender pairs (42% female) to design and program their own video game. Data include video and audio recordings, screen capture files and logging files. The findings suggest that students are spending log periods of time not interacting, and those with more experience have a third person present more often while programming. When pairs are interacting specifically about their game the girls spend more time engaging constructively around ideas and solutions in comparison to boys. The results will be used to inform strategies to support effective pair programming in middle school, and to inform future studies.

Sixty-nine pairs of Latino and white middle school students were video recorded as they pair programmed for approximately 20 minutes. We quantitatively analyzed the partners' interactions specifically looking at characteristics of their collaboration. A qualitative analysis of interactions of three girl pairs was conducted to gain insight into how students' experience in diverse cultural communities may relate to their collaboration during pair programming.

This article reports the results of a study of the relationship of computer game programming to computational learning (CL). The results contribute to the growing body of knowledge about how to define and measure CL among children by proposing a new concept, Game Computational Sophistication (GCS). We analyzed 231 games programmed by 325 11 and 12 year olds with a range of prior computer experience who attended a voluntary technology class during or after school. Findings suggest that students’ games exhibited a range of GCS: programs composed of sequences of simple programming constructs; programs composed of programming constructs, some of which are used to implement higher-order patterns; and programs composed of game mechanics built from combinations of patterns “glued” together with simple programming constructs. We use case studies of students’ games to illustrate how variation in the use and integration of programming constructs, patterns, and game mechanics can be used to demonstrate evidence of CL. The study contributes to an understanding of what CL looks like in middle school, how to assess it, and how game-programming activities might promote CL.

In this panel, we will address questions regarding the development and execution of one type of industry-academic collaboration - corporate-sponsored projects. As representatives of programs at both public and private institutions, we will address a set of questions related to these programs. We have prepared an initial list that will be augmented with questions submitted and voted on by conference participants in advance of the session. After we have presented our prepared responses, the balance of the session will be dedicated to open discussion with audience members.

Research shows the benefits of pair programming for retention and performance in computing, but little is known about how relationship dynamics influence outcomes. We describe results from our study of middle school students programming games using Alice and pair programming. From our analysis using statistical procedures that take into account the interdependence of pair data, we found evidence for partner influence moderated by the role of confidence over improvements in Alice programming knowledge in friend partnerships but not non-friend partnerships. We discuss implications for researchers and educators.

There is growing interest in how we can use computer logging data to improve computational tools and pedagogies to engage children in complex thinking and self-expression, but our techniques lag far behind our theories. Only recently have learning scientists begun to measure, collect, analyze, and report how data informs the science of children's learning. In this paper, we describe our initial efforts towards developing tools to mine computer logging data for information on how to enhance learning opportunities. The data were collected as part of an NSF-funded project, and include logs from 320 middle school students using Alice to program computer games in semester-long courses. We describe some lessons learned and decisions made in the process of reconstructing high-level user actions in Alice from low-level Alice logs.

Programming environments that incorporate drag-and-drop methods and many pre-defined objects and operations are being widely used in K-12 settings. But can middle school students learn complex computer science concepts by using these programming environments when computer science is not the focus of the course? In this paper, we describe a semester-long game-programming course where 325 middle school students used Alice. We report on our analysis of 231 final games where we measured the frequency of successful execution of programming constructs. Our results show that many games exhibit successful uses of high level computer science concepts such as student-created abstractions, concurrent execution, and event handlers.We discuss the implications of these results for designing effective game programming courses for young students.

Computational thinking (CT) has been described as an essential capacity to prepare students for computer science, as well as to be productive members of society. But efforts to engage K-12 students in CT are hampered by a lack of definition and assessment tools. In this paper, we describe the first results of a newly created performance assessment tool for measuring CT in middle school. We briefly describe the context for the performance assessment (game-programming courses), the aspects of CT that are measured, the results, and the factors that are associated with performance. We see the development of assessment tools as a critical step in efforts to bring CT to K-12, and to strengthen the use of game programming in middle school. We discuss problems and implications of our results.

In this paper we share experiences from two 2-week summer courses for middle-school students in game programming using Storytelling Alice (SA). The students spent 20 hours learning SA and creating their own 'games' alone and in pairs. We discuss problems and preliminary findings regarding game programming by middle-school students. Our findings suggest that middle-school students can use SA to make games, and that this activity can be used to build information technology fluency.

Pair-programming has been found to be very beneficial in educational settings. Students who pair in their introductory programming course are more confident, have greater course completion and pass rates, and are more likely to persist in computer-related majors. Although pairing helps all students, we believe that it is particularly beneficial for women because it addresses several significant factors that limit women's participation in computer science. We provide reasons for our belief that pair-programming helps women persist in these majors. We also repeat, with special emphasis on the impact on women, some details published elsewhere regarding our experiments on pair-programming with college and university students. Additionally, we provide new data that supports our original findings.

As the software industry matures, new development technologies are invented and some of these technologies transition into best practices. Our role as university educators is to teach these best practices and change attitudes so that our students graduate as software engineers who believe in the use of these methodologies. One question that all software engineering educators have is 'can we measure whether our courses change attitudes about the use of these methodologies?' In this small case study, conventional techniques in psychology for attitude measurement are used to construct scales for measuring software engineering students' attitudes toward the code inspection process. The scales were applied in a pre-pilot survey, a pilot survey, a test survey, and then again in a larger test situation. Our test results suggest that our students improved their intellectual acceptance of code inspections after viewing an inspection video. Students emotionally accepted inspection only after practice. Our work shows that this line of research has the potential to help assess the impact of software engineering teaching methods and materials.

This study examined the effectiveness of pair programming in four lecture sections of a large introductory programming course. We were particularly interested in assessing how the use of pair programming affects student performance and decisions to pursue computer science related majors. We found that students who used pair programming produced better programs, were more confident in their solutions, and enjoyed completing the assignments more than students who programmed alone. Moreover, pairing students were significantly more likely than non-pairing students to complete the course, and consequently to pass it. Among those who completed the course, pairers performed as well on the final exam as non-pairers, were significantly more likely to be registered as computer science related majors one year later, and to have taken subsequent programming courses. Our findings suggest that not only does pairing not compromise students' learning, but that it may enhance the quality of their programs and encourage them to pursue computer science degrees.

Undergraduate freshman programming classes are conventionally organized such that individual students complete a set of concept-specific and unrelated programming assignments. This structure does not prepare students for future collaborative efforts or for the future use of software engineering practices. The addition of pair programming into a freshman programming class at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) showed similar benefits to similar studies on upper-division software classes, and is expected to show an improvement in students' willingness and ability to participate in complex, collaborative software engineering assignments in later classes. This paper describes the implementation of the pair programming experiment at UCSC, discusses some of the issues that compromised the effectiveness of certain pairs, and provides implementation guidelines for avoiding such issues in other classes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pair-programming on student performance in an introductory programming class. Data was collected from approximately 600 students who either completed programming assignments with a partner or programmed independently. Students who programmed in pairs produced better programs, completed the course at higher rates, and performed about as well on the final exam as students who programmed independently. Our findings suggest that collaboration is an effective pedagogical tool for teaching introductory programming.

My part in this workshop is to describe the graduate software engineering course at UCSC, CMPE276, including the delivery mode, teaching and learning mechanisms, student profile, assessment methods, successes and problems, and improvements needed. The CMPE276 course gives students a strong background in software engineering. The traditional topics of software engineering are covered, using textbook readings, journal and conference papers.Students are required to prepare by commenting on their readings for each (or for every other) class meeting. The class sessions are spent as discussions woven together from the material in the students' comments. The students are graded on the technical quality of their comments. The students are graded on their class participation. In addition, students are graded on a final exam covering material from these readings and from small team projects which are presented to the class at the end of the quarter. Project topics are problems suggested by local companies.Topics have included: the design of an experiment to determine the goodness of a testing plan, the design and optional implementation of a system to promote a company's look and feel standard for user interfaces, investigation of defects found in a past release of software to determine effectiveness of development techniques, investigation of the process used for an inspection method of a requirements specification, and development of a model for software acquisition or internal development. Students are evaluated on their understanding of the theoretical basis of the problem as demonstrated in their written and oral reports, and their development of solutions to the stated problem.Most of the students in CMPE276 are computer science or engineering graduate students with some whose primary language is not English. Others come from other departments or from industry. Successes with this course include that my students read many (10-40) papers during the quarter.Critical to this is the required writing assignment for every paper, timely feedback, and timely discussion of the paper during class. Success with the project work requires readings that target relevant software engineering topics which provide a good starting point for the teams' project work. Benefits include real world experience and contacts for the students. Problems include slips in the schedules of the industry projects and trouble coordinating the communication between the company and students. Additional time management problems arise trying to return students' paper comments for each class session.One suggestion for improvement would be to ask students to evaluate each other's work. Also, a reduced collection of software engineering standards would be useful for the students for use in their project work.