A call to the computer science education community to make our values match our actions related to broadening participation through epistemological inclusion.

The use of established and discipline-specific theories within research and practice is an indication of the maturity of a discipline. With computing education research as a relatively young discipline, there has been recent interest in investigating theories that may prove foundational to work in this area, with discipline-specific theories and many theories from other disciplines emerging as relevant. A challenge for the researcher is to identify and select the theories that provide the best foundation for their work. Learning is a complex and multi-faceted process and, as such, a plethora of theories are potentially applicable to a research problem. Knowing the possible candidate theories and understanding their relationships and potential applicability, both individually or as a community of theories, is important to provide a comprehensive grounding for researchers and practitioners alike. In this work, we investigate the fundamental connections between learning theories foundational to research and practice in computing education. We build a comprehensive list of 84 learning theories and their source and influential papers, which are the papers that introduce or propagate specific theories within the research community. Using Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and Google Scholar, we identify the papers that cite these learning theories. We subsequently consider all possible pairs of these theories and build the set of papers that cite each pair. On this weighted graph of learning theory connections, we perform a community analysis to identify groups of closely linked learning theories. We find that most of the computing education learning theories are closely linked with a number of broader learning theories, forming a separate cluster of 17 learning theories. We build a taxonomy of theory relationships to identify the depth of connections between learning theories. Of the 294 analysed links, we find deep connections in 32 links. This indicates that while the computing education research community is aware of a large number of learning theories, there is still a need to better understand how learning theories are connected and how they can be used together to benefit computing education research and practice.

Programming education is strongly emerging in elementary and high school. Diversity and inclusion are important topics, however, insights on suited programming materials for younger learners with visual impairments are lacking. A wide range of programming materials for children exists, diverse in both what is being programmed (output) and how this is done (input), yet often relying on visual features. An understanding of the usability and accessibility aspects of these different materials is important to inform educational practice and to increase understanding of what makes programming materials suited for low vision and blind children. The aim of this study is to explore the usability and accessibility of programming materials currently used in education to low vision and blind children in the Netherlands. A focus group was conducted with six teachers or IT experts, all working with the target group in special education. The thematic analysis of the discussion of 25 materials (including unplugged lessons, robots and robotic kits, block-based and text-based languages) showed the potential of several materials, especially unplugged lessons, and the continuing search for suited materials and workforms specifically for the blind children. Furthermore, prioritizing “fun” and close connections to children’s daily life as well as careful explorations of usability at the cognitive level came forward as important factors for future research and development in programming materials for low vision and blind children. These insights can contribute to obtaining an inclusive approach to programming for young learners.

This article reviews literature on worked examples in the context of programming activities. We focus on two types of examples, namely, code-tracing and code-generation, because there is sufficient research on these to warrant a review. We synthesize key results according to themes that emerged from the review. This synthesis aims to provide practical guidance for educators and shed light on future research opportunities. While there is established work in some areas (e.g., dynamic code-tracing examples in the form of program visualization tools, utility of subgoals in code-generation examples, and incomplete examples in the form of Parsons puzzles), there are also gaps. Thus, the article concludes with directions for future work on examples in computer science education.

Modeling is an integral part of many computing-related disciplines and thus also represents a curricular core component in computing education in tertiary education. Competence models in which modeling is integrated at least to some extent already exist in some of these disciplines. However, for the core component of graphical modeling, a competence model that illuminates the relevant competences in detail is still lacking. Therefore, we develop a competence model for graphical modeling with the aim to make teaching and especially assessments in the field more competence-oriented. This article reports on the first two studies conducted to develop and validate the competence model for graphical modeling. In the first study, the structure of the competence model was developed based on theories and approaches of educational science. Competences relevant for graphical modeling were deductively derived from literature and existing university course descriptions using techniques of qualitative content analysis. The result of the first study is a preliminary competence model. In the second study, the preliminary competence model was reviewed by means of an expert rating in the modeling community. The competence model was revised and refined based on these findings and subsequent expert discussions. The main result of the investigation represents the competence model for graphical modeling, which includes a total of 74 competence facets at different cognitive process levels in the five content areas of “model understanding and interpreting,” “model building and modifying,” “values, attitudes, and beliefs,” “metacognitive knowledge and skills,” and “social-communicative skills.”

Computing is rapidly becoming a critical literacy for succeeding in an increasingly technological world. While the proliferation of programs dedicated to broadening participation in computing increases access, computing education research can benefit from more directly drawing on current interest development theory to improve interventions that increase the desire to participate and persist in computing. In this article, we present an overview of current interest development theory and provide guidance to computing education researchers on ways to ground their conceptualization and measurement of interest in contemporary theory and inform ways of interweaving interest theory throughout intervention or curriculum design. The central contribution of this work is presenting the Integrated Interest Development for Computing Education Framework. This framework is organized around three central dimensions of interest: value, knowledge, and belonging. For each of these dimensions, the framework presents key factors that link the dimension to strategies that can be employed in computing education contexts to help develop interest. The article also describes methods of measuring interest in computing that are consistent with interest development theory, and provides examples and resources for validated measures of interest. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and potential for improving the conceptualization and measurement of interest development in computing education and future work needed to advance an understanding of how interest in computing develops that can lead to improving the design of computing educational programs to support interest development.

In May and June 2021, the author conducted a survey of the computing and mathematical graduation requirements of 500 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science ( BSCS ) programs in the U.S. to determine alignment among these requirements and those recommended by ACM/IEEE-CS’s Computer Science Curricula 2013 guidelines and ABET’s Criteria for Accrediting Computing Programs 2021–2022 curricular criterion. Specifically, computing and mathematics credit-hour and course graduation requirements were determined for ABET-accredited and non-accredited BSCS programs within public and private universities. As (i) curricular guidelines are recommendations that do not have to be followed, (ii) curricular accreditation criteria are minimal constraints that may be exceeded, and (iii) non-accredited programs may choose to meet or exceed curricular accreditation criterion, it is possible that graduating computer science students are exposed to similar, or a wide variety, of coursework and associated topics. The survey results presented in this article provide broad answers to these three curricular possibilities. In turn, these results can contribute to future discussions concerning the perceived value of accreditation to students and industry stakeholders, allow educators in computer science departments to compare their curriculum to a large sample of other universities, and provide curricular committees additional insight into how various curricular guidelines are realistically being used.

The daily influence of new technologies on shaping and reshaping human lives necessitates attention to the ethical development of the future computing workforce. To improve computer science students’ ethical decision-making, it is important to know how they make decisions when they face ethical issues. This article contributes to the research and practice of computer ethics education by identifying the factors that influence ethical decision-making of computer science students and providing implications to improve the process. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, the data from the text of the students’ discussion postings on three ethical scenarios in computer science and the follow-up interviews were analyzed. Based on the analysis, relating to real-life stories, thoughtfulness about responsibilities that come from the technical knowledge of developers, showing care for users or others who might be affected, and recognition of fallacies, contributed to better ethical decision-making. On the other hand, falling for fallacies and empathy for developers negatively influenced students' ethical decision-making process. Based on the findings, this study presents a model of factors that influence the ethical decision-making process of computer science students, along with implications for future researchers and computer ethics educators.

Here, we present the results of a study of in-service teachers’ responses to equity-based case study vignettes focused on racialized classroom incidents. This study was conducted in the context of an ongoing research practice partnership aimed at integrating computer science concepts in elementary grades. Our work took place in a public school district that enrolls primarily students of color, while largely employing White teachers and administrators. Using a racial literacy framework [Guinier 2004 ], we conceptualized a continuum and developed codes to analyze teachers’ responses from racially liberal to racially literate. Our results describe a range of positions across the continuum, including those consistent with the racial liberalism viewpoint that expresses individualistic views of meritocracy and colorblindness that sometimes supports a deficit view of students, those that reside in the middle who validate equity work through minimal acknowledgment yet find ways to resist further engagement with race or equity, and those who express views consistent with racial literacy practices including student-centered perspectives, asset-orientations, and the willingness to engage race directly. Further, our results indicate that teachers may express contradictory views or views across the continuum. These findings point to the developmental nature of racial literacy and the difficulty of unlearning racist mindsets. We discuss the efficacy of our case study design: anonymized, locally derived vignettes, and our case study learning activity design: written reflections, small group dialogues, and whole group share-outs in supporting teacher reflection and learning. Finally, we demonstrate the special leadership role of teachers who are moving toward racial literacy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of Minecraft-based coding activities on computational thinking (CT) of middle school students. In the study, CT was conceptualized so that it encapsulates not only the knowledge of computational concepts (e.g., loops and conditionals) but also the use of CT practices (e.g., testing and debugging). Data were collected using a combination of knowledge of computational concepts tests, the Minecraft-based coding artifacts, and one-on-one student interviews focusing on the processes of developing computational artifacts. The participants were 20 fifth-grade middle school students from a low-income public school with very limited (if none) formal computer programming experiences before the study. The Minecraft-based coding activities were designed and implemented as an instructional program to last 6 weeks. The results of the study showed a statistically significant increase in students’ knowledge of computational concepts. Based on the analysis of the students’ final coding artifacts, we identified that students mostly used the concepts of sequences, events, loops, and parallelism correctly, whereas variables, operators, and conditionals appeared to be the least successfully used concepts. The qualitative analysis of the artifact-based interviews showed that students employed the CT practices of testing and debugging most of the time while developing an artifact through coding. In contrast, the least resorted CT practice appeared to be reusing and remixing.