Today, almost every computer has at least one multicore processor. To remain in stride with hardw... more Today, almost every computer has at least one multicore processor. To remain in stride with hardware developments, numerous university faculties oriented towards computer science have introduced parallel programming as an integral part of their courses. The question is, given the availability of parallel architectures, and considering future trends in programming, whether it is time for parallel programming to also become an integral part of the informatics curriculum in secondary schools? This paper presents research conducted in three schools in Croatia over several school years. A total of 162 students from the science-mathematic high schools participated in the research. The results, based on student evaluations, suggest that this course content is equally interesting and somewhat more difficult, and perceived as equally useful as other course content taught to students. Moreover, the findings indicate that students can understand and later apply some of the fundamental concepts of parallel programming.
Despite the awareness of the important role of programming in today's technological lifestyle and... more Despite the awareness of the important role of programming in today's technological lifestyle and the fact that programming jobs are among the most sought after professions today, computer science students consider programming contents overly demanding and often avoid them. This paper aims to provide an overview of the relevant literature and studies that examine factors that may significantly affect the performance of programming. We will give an overview of good and bad predictors of success in programming and factors that, so far, have not shown the predictions' strength or their impact on the performance of programming hasn't been sufficiently explored. Knowledge of these factors is extremely important for computer science teachers in order to apply the appropriate teaching model for novices that emphasizes the development of the ability to anticipate and understand what happens when a specific computer program performs. Factors like mathematical knowledge, attribution of success, good spatial maps sketching have proved to be good predictors of programming success while surface learning approach showed strong negative impact on novices' programming performance. On the other hand, despite the expectations, student's gender, number of years of programming, number of familiar programming languages, haven't show any significant impact on programming performance.
This paper explores the motivation of students to participate in the Computer Science competition... more This paper explores the motivation of students to participate in the Computer Science competition. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 139 participants of the competition in elementary schools as a special form of non-experimental research. As the primary source of data in the study is used a personal statement about the opinions, beliefs, attitudes and behavior, obtained with the corresponding series of standardized questions. The questions are designed to test the importance which students assign to the teacher as one of the factors, and other factors that significantly affect the increase in their motivation to learn Computer Science.
Conventional type of education which leads towards PhD in substrate sciences for professors (teac... more Conventional type of education which leads towards PhD in substrate sciences for professors (teachers) interested in scientific research related to education is not an optimal choice, but, at the moment, in Croatia doesn’ t exist a system of scientific specialization that leads towards PhD in education of technical (and natural) sciences. It should be emphasized that the proposed study is primarily oriented towards students that finished graduate studies for elementary and secondary school professors in informatics and technics but it is also opened towards engineers that have obtained additional psychological-pedagogical education. In addition, it is expected that the high-quality authors of the elementary and secondary schools textbooks could be recruited from the students that finished this study program. Modular approach of the presented study program and large number of elective courses provides students to learn and sub specialize in various specific areas. However, a number o...
With the new CS Curriculum in the Republic of Croatia, Computational thinking (CT) has finally be... more With the new CS Curriculum in the Republic of Croatia, Computational thinking (CT) has finally been introduced in the educational process. In addition to the benefits that CT concepts bring to CS education, the question of evaluating CT and programming learning outcomes is also opening. The purpose of this paper is to present a model of evaluation of CT concepts based on the learning outcomes of the Croatian CS Curriculum using the Evidence-center design approach. The model is independent of the programming tool or environment and is intended for use with students who are CS novices.
Učenje i poučavanje algoritama sortiranja je vrlo zahtjevno kako za učitelja tako i za učenike. P... more Učenje i poučavanje algoritama sortiranja je vrlo zahtjevno kako za učitelja tako i za učenike. Problem može biti još veći kada se nastava u cijelosti provodi u online okruženju što je bio slučaj u Republici Hrvatskoj od sredine ožujka do kraja školske godine 2019/20 zbog COVID-19 pandemije. Korištenje alata za vizualizaciju može pomoći u spuštanju razine apstrakcije pri poučavanju složenih koncepata kako bi učenici lakše razumjeli rad algoritama. U svrhu ispitivanja utjecaja korištenja alata za vizualizaciju tijekom online nastave provedeno je istraživanje u travnju i svibnju 2020. godine u dva treća razreda (n=52) jedne Prirodoslovno-matematičke gimnazije. U eksperimentalnoj grupi koristili smo alate za vizualizaciju VisuAlgo i Python Tutor za poučavanje algoritama sortiranja i implementaciju istih u Pythonu. Osim toga su ispitani i stavovi učenika o aktualnom provođenju online nastave U ovom radu su opisani provedba i rezultati navedenog istraživanja.
In the Republic of Croatia primary and secondary schools students compete in IT categories such a... more In the Republic of Croatia primary and secondary schools students compete in IT categories such as solving problems in programming, knowing fundamental Computer Science concepts or individual software project development. This research aims to explore different student’s motivation to participate in IT competition and to plan and organize self-preparation for it. Impact of some factors like competitor’s gender, category of competition, preparing strategy, general feeling of satisfaction and so on achieving success in this IT competition was explored. Preliminary data, among other, suggests that students consider their mentors (teachers), the most important factor in preparing for competition. Also, students do not consider that this competition could bring them some prestige in school or society, but they have some intrinsic motivation to participate in competition and use all available resources, human or material, to achieve success.
Today, almost every computer has at least one multicore processor. To remain in stride with hardw... more Today, almost every computer has at least one multicore processor. To remain in stride with hardware developments, numerous university faculties oriented towards computer science have introduced parallel programming as an integral part of their courses. The question is, given the availability of parallel architectures, and considering future trends in programming, whether it is time for parallel programming to also become an integral part of the informatics curriculum in secondary schools? This paper presents research conducted in three schools in Croatia over several school years. A total of 162 students from the science-mathematic high schools participated in the research. The results, based on student evaluations, suggest that this course content is equally interesting and somewhat more difficult, and perceived as equally useful as other course content taught to students. Moreover, the findings indicate that students can understand and later apply some of the fundamental concepts of parallel programming.
Despite the awareness of the important role of programming in today's technological lifestyle and... more Despite the awareness of the important role of programming in today's technological lifestyle and the fact that programming jobs are among the most sought after professions today, computer science students consider programming contents overly demanding and often avoid them. This paper aims to provide an overview of the relevant literature and studies that examine factors that may significantly affect the performance of programming. We will give an overview of good and bad predictors of success in programming and factors that, so far, have not shown the predictions' strength or their impact on the performance of programming hasn't been sufficiently explored. Knowledge of these factors is extremely important for computer science teachers in order to apply the appropriate teaching model for novices that emphasizes the development of the ability to anticipate and understand what happens when a specific computer program performs. Factors like mathematical knowledge, attribution of success, good spatial maps sketching have proved to be good predictors of programming success while surface learning approach showed strong negative impact on novices' programming performance. On the other hand, despite the expectations, student's gender, number of years of programming, number of familiar programming languages, haven't show any significant impact on programming performance.
This paper explores the motivation of students to participate in the Computer Science competition... more This paper explores the motivation of students to participate in the Computer Science competition. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 139 participants of the competition in elementary schools as a special form of non-experimental research. As the primary source of data in the study is used a personal statement about the opinions, beliefs, attitudes and behavior, obtained with the corresponding series of standardized questions. The questions are designed to test the importance which students assign to the teacher as one of the factors, and other factors that significantly affect the increase in their motivation to learn Computer Science.
Conventional type of education which leads towards PhD in substrate sciences for professors (teac... more Conventional type of education which leads towards PhD in substrate sciences for professors (teachers) interested in scientific research related to education is not an optimal choice, but, at the moment, in Croatia doesn’ t exist a system of scientific specialization that leads towards PhD in education of technical (and natural) sciences. It should be emphasized that the proposed study is primarily oriented towards students that finished graduate studies for elementary and secondary school professors in informatics and technics but it is also opened towards engineers that have obtained additional psychological-pedagogical education. In addition, it is expected that the high-quality authors of the elementary and secondary schools textbooks could be recruited from the students that finished this study program. Modular approach of the presented study program and large number of elective courses provides students to learn and sub specialize in various specific areas. However, a number o...
With the new CS Curriculum in the Republic of Croatia, Computational thinking (CT) has finally be... more With the new CS Curriculum in the Republic of Croatia, Computational thinking (CT) has finally been introduced in the educational process. In addition to the benefits that CT concepts bring to CS education, the question of evaluating CT and programming learning outcomes is also opening. The purpose of this paper is to present a model of evaluation of CT concepts based on the learning outcomes of the Croatian CS Curriculum using the Evidence-center design approach. The model is independent of the programming tool or environment and is intended for use with students who are CS novices.
Učenje i poučavanje algoritama sortiranja je vrlo zahtjevno kako za učitelja tako i za učenike. P... more Učenje i poučavanje algoritama sortiranja je vrlo zahtjevno kako za učitelja tako i za učenike. Problem može biti još veći kada se nastava u cijelosti provodi u online okruženju što je bio slučaj u Republici Hrvatskoj od sredine ožujka do kraja školske godine 2019/20 zbog COVID-19 pandemije. Korištenje alata za vizualizaciju može pomoći u spuštanju razine apstrakcije pri poučavanju složenih koncepata kako bi učenici lakše razumjeli rad algoritama. U svrhu ispitivanja utjecaja korištenja alata za vizualizaciju tijekom online nastave provedeno je istraživanje u travnju i svibnju 2020. godine u dva treća razreda (n=52) jedne Prirodoslovno-matematičke gimnazije. U eksperimentalnoj grupi koristili smo alate za vizualizaciju VisuAlgo i Python Tutor za poučavanje algoritama sortiranja i implementaciju istih u Pythonu. Osim toga su ispitani i stavovi učenika o aktualnom provođenju online nastave U ovom radu su opisani provedba i rezultati navedenog istraživanja.
In the Republic of Croatia primary and secondary schools students compete in IT categories such a... more In the Republic of Croatia primary and secondary schools students compete in IT categories such as solving problems in programming, knowing fundamental Computer Science concepts or individual software project development. This research aims to explore different student’s motivation to participate in IT competition and to plan and organize self-preparation for it. Impact of some factors like competitor’s gender, category of competition, preparing strategy, general feeling of satisfaction and so on achieving success in this IT competition was explored. Preliminary data, among other, suggests that students consider their mentors (teachers), the most important factor in preparing for competition. Also, students do not consider that this competition could bring them some prestige in school or society, but they have some intrinsic motivation to participate in competition and use all available resources, human or material, to achieve success.
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Papers by Ivica Boljat