scholarly journals A Guided Scratch Visual Execution Environment to Introduce Programming Concepts to CS1 Students

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 378
Author(s):  
Raquel Hijón-Neira ◽  
Cornelia Connolly ◽  
Daniel Palacios-Alonso ◽  
Oriol Borrás-Gené
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Course Sequences ◽  
Execution Environment ◽  
University Level ◽  
Programming Knowledge ◽  
The University ◽  
Novice Students ◽  
Interactive Exercises ◽  
Initial Knowledge

First-year computer science (CS1) university students traditionally have difficulties understanding how to program. This paper describes research introducing CS1 students to programming concepts using a Scratch programming language guided visual execution environment (VEE). The concepts addressed are those from an introductory programming course (sequences, variables, operators, conditionals, loops, and events and parallelism). The VEE guides novice students through programming concepts, explaining and guiding interactive exercises executed in Scratch by using metaphors and serious games. The objective of this study is, firstly, to investigate if a cohort of 124 CS1 students, from three distinct groups, studying at the same university, are able to improve their programming skills guided by the VEE. Secondly, is the improvement different for various programming concepts? All the CS1 students were taught the module by the same tutor in four 2-h sessions (8 h), and a qualitative research approach was adopted. The results show students significantly improved their programming knowledge, and this improvement is significant for all the programming concepts, although greater for certain concepts such as operators, conditionals, and loops than others. It also shows that students lacked initial knowledge of events and parallelism, though most had used Scratch during their high school years. The sequence concept was the most popular concept known to them. A collateral finding in this study is how the students’ previous knowledge and learning gaps affected grades they required to access and begin study at the university level.

Thathir Quality Scholarship Program For Students At University level

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Louay Qais Abdullah ◽  
Duraid Faris Khayoun
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
First Year ◽  
Grant Program ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
University Level ◽  
Faculty Of Education ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

The study focused basically on measuring the relationship between the material cost of the students benefits program and the benefits which are earned by it, which was distributed on college students in the initial stages (matinee) and to show the extent of the benefits accruing from the grant program compared to the material burdens which matched and the extent of success or failure of the experience and its effect from o scientific and side on the Iraqi student through these tough economic circumstances experienced by the country in general, and also trying to find ways of proposed increase or expansion of distribution in the future in the event of proven economic feasibility from the program. An data has been taking from the data fro the Department of Financial Affairs and the Department of Studies and Planning at the University of Diyala with taking an data representing an actual and minimized pattern and questionnaires to a sample of students from the Department of Life Sciences in the Faculty of Education of the University of Diyala on the level of success and failure of students in the first year of the grant and the year before for the purpose of distribution comparison. The importance of the study to measure the extent of interest earned in comparision whit the material which is expenseon the program of grant (grant of students) to assist the competent authorities to continue or not in the program of student grants for the coming years.

scholarly journals Psychology Students' Perceptions of COVID-19 in a Death Education Course

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Testoni ◽  
Erika Iacona ◽  
Cecilia Corso ◽  
Sara Pompele ◽  
Laura Dal Corso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Death Education ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University

The systematic removal of death from social life in the West has exposed people living in areas affected by COVID-19 to the risk of being unable to adequately manage the anxiety caused by mortality salience. Death education is a type of intervention that helps people manage their fear of death by offering them effective strategies to deal with loss and anxiety. To that end, a path of death education has been carried out with University students of psychology. The main purpose of the research is to understand how students who participated in the death education course perceive the lockdown experience in light of course teachings. The research was carried out at a University in northern Italy in an area severely affected by COVID-19, during the first year of the pandemic. The group of participants included 38 students, 30 women and 8 men, with an average age of 25.45 years (SD = 7). At the end of the course, the students could respond on an optional basis to the request to comment on the training experience according to what they experienced during the pandemic. A thematic analysis was subsequently carried out on the texts, which made it possible to identify the most relevant thematic areas for the students. The qualitative analyses permitted recognition of three main forms of discovery: the removal of death in contemporary culture; the importance of community, ritual and funeral, and spirituality; and the significance of death education for future health professionals. The texts have highlighted how the removal of these issues exposes people to the risk of being unable to handle extremely painful events such as those related to dying. The results show the positivity of death education pathways conducted at the University level to help students reflect on these issues and manage the related anguish.

scholarly journals High School to University in Ontario: Did an Extra Year Make a Difference?

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-119
Author(s):  
Patrick Brady ◽  
Philip Allingham
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
First Year ◽  
Post Secondary Education ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Academic Credit ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University

This study examined perceptions of preparedness for post-secondary education in the province of Ontario. Participants were 272 university students enrolled in the first year of a four-or five-year concurrent teacher education program and represented two distinctive groups: (a) entrants who had completed the old five-year Ontario Academic Credit system, and (b) those who were admitted to university via the new four-year program. They responded to a questionnaire which inquired into the degree to which they believed that their final year of secondary school had adequately prepared them for the transition to university level studies. Although data analysis did not reveal any significant difference between the two groups in terms of academic achievement, Grade 12s reported feeling less prepared overall for the challenges of university, especially in terms of the acquisition of specific academic skills, as well as adjustment to the university social milieu.

scholarly journals Promoting learning with understanding: Introducing languaging exercises in calculus course for engineering students at the university level

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Alfaro Viquez ◽  
Jorma Joutsenlahti
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teaching ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Mathematical Thinking ◽  
First Year ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Mathematical Skills ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Basic Calculus ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University

The study of mathematics at the university level requires logical thinking and strong mathematical skills. Contemporary first-year students are not prepared for these demands and end up failing their courses. This study aims to present an instrument for enhancing mathematics teaching and promoting learning with understanding in higher education by a combination of symbolic, natural, and pictorial languages in different tasks. We analyze the 17 solutions of four languaging exercises administered in a basic calculus course for engineering students at the University of Costa Rica. The results suggest that these exercises promote the acquisition of skills necessary to be mathematically proficient and are a useful tool for revealing students’ mathematical thinking and misconceptions.

scholarly journals Affective Epiphanies

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-315
Author(s):  
Anita Sinner
Keyword(s):  
Museum Education ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Sensory Awareness ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
University Level ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The University

This proposition explores the potential of a pedagogy of affect as an arts- based research approach to museum education at the university level. Such an approach is predicated on a continuous movement of situated stories as the heart of the learning encounter, generated relationally between object-body-space, or artwork- learner-museum. As a forum for deliberation, the purpose of this conversation is to consider how emotions, as the basis for teaching with caring and sensory awareness, bring vitality, aliveness, and feelings to the fore. This conversation explores affective epiphanies sourced from personal practical knowledge as an expression of arts- research-in-progress. By drawing on autoethnographic life writing, I explore an alternate approach to three museum collections that demonstrate how and why the aesthetic relation of stories operate as pedagogic pivots in ways that reconfigure conventional museum engagement. Rethinking museum education with an arts research perspective is an effort to advance how context connects affective systems of knowing relationally, and why embracing stories offers new pathways to understand museum education through more expansive learning approaches, inclusive of feeling.

scholarly journals The Impact of Grade Incentives and Gender on Student Performance: An Experiment

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
Mehreen Amjad Furqan ◽  
Sohnia Salman ◽  
Sohail Zafar
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Accounting Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Mathematics Students ◽  
University Level ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mathematics Course

This experiment was conducted to determine the impact of grade incentives and gender on student performance at the university level. We perform a two-way analysis of variance on a sample of three groups of students taking a first-year core mathematics course and another three groups taking a fourth-year compulsory accounting course. We find that grade incentives significantly affect student performance for both sampled courses across all six groups. Gender is found to significantly affect the performance of mathematics students, but not of accounting students. The interaction between gender and grade incentives does not have a significant impact on performance in either experiment.

scholarly journals DEVELOPING OF FACTOR STRUCTURE FOR LEARNING STRATEGIES OF ESTONIAN STUDENTS IN MATHEMATICS AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 338-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrek Kaldo ◽  
Kandela Õun
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
First Year ◽  
Component Structure ◽  
University Mathematics ◽  
Item List ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time

This research reports learning strategies of the first-year Estonian university students in mathematics. The data were collected during two years from 440 university students of different disciplines. The respondents were among students who take at least one compulsory mathematics course during their first study year. The participants filled out a Likert-type questionnaire that was developed using previously published instruments. The aim of this research was to examine the 69-item LIST questionnaire first time for Estonian university students. By means of an exploratory factor analysis, 9 factors out of 12 were confirmed. The research confirmed most of the components identified in earlier studies. It validates the use of the instrument in further studies of learning strategies at the university level in Estonia. This gives a positive signal about the usefulness of the instrument, as the component structure remains stable in different populations. Keywords: learning strategies, LIST questionnaire, mathematics education, mathematics related affect, university mathematics.

scholarly journals WHY SHOULD ORAL PRESENTATIONS BE INTRODUCED IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AT TEACHER TRAINING FACULTIES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordana Ljubičić ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
First Year ◽  
The Third ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Weak Points ◽  
University Level ◽  
Faculty Of Education ◽  
The University ◽  
Oral Presentations ◽  
Oral Skills

The students of the Faculty of Education of Uzice have the English language classes during four semesters at their initial studies, that is, during the first and the third year, and again at their master studies. During the first year they mainly develop their grammatical and linguistic competences by reading and translating the texts whose topics relate to their future profession. As the groups of students are rather large there is not much time left for developing their oral skills. This problem is, to some extent, overcome during the third year of studies when the groups become smaller and the teacher is able to dedicate more time to developing speaking skills in the class. A very good speaking task is the introduction of oral presentations. The topics are carefully chosen to arouse studentsʼ interests and to make them want to engage in this kind of activity. The paper discusses the advantages and the weak points of this kind of oral tasks at the university level studies.

scholarly journals UNIVERSITY-LEVEL DESIGN ENGINEERING CHALLENGES WITH STUDENT FEEDBACK

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Bazylak ◽  
Peter Wild
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
First Year ◽  
Design Engineering ◽  
Electromagnetic Model ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

The Design Engineering Challenge Series is a set of design events organized by the University of Victoria Design Engineering Office to enhance the undergraduate student design experience. The first of the two events run in the series was the First Year Design Engineering Challenge. This event challenged first year engineering students to design and construct a microcontroller-directed electromagnetic model crane, in a single day. The second event had students from across campus working in interdisciplinary teams to design video games. Both events were extremely successful with follow up events planned for the next academic year.

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