• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.123-134
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• 2017

The ability to use information technology has become increasingly important as technological advances continue to sweep through the computing world, and education for improving computational thinking has become globally instituted. In South Korea, informatics subjects have been modified in the 2015 curriculum and are now compulsory in primary and secondary education. However, despite substantial financial investment and numerous studies promoting informatics education, there continues to be a serious lack of pre-service teachers capable of teaching computational thinking. This study investigated pre-service teacher programming education using App Inventor, their perceptions of App Inventor, and how use of the program affected teacher problem-solving abilities and self-efficacy. In the pre-test, the control group and experimental group showed no statistically significant difference; however, the post-test revealed that the two groups showed statistically significant differences in problem-solving skills and self-efficacy. The participants initially showed interest in using App Inventor; however, after practice-teaching and project-based learning, the participants demonstrated a growing negativity toward the program when they made errors and the functional limits of App Inventor became apparent. Although most participants stated that they would not use App Inventor in their classes, the positive statistically significant differences in problem-solving skills and self-efficacy indicate that this study could be utilized as a basis for building a teaching-learning program using App Inventor and creating an educational plan for teaching computational thinking.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.475-486
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• 2016

As software transforms the structure of industry, it becomes a key measure in determining market competitiveness. Therefore, various educational efforts have been attempted in Korea to cultivate software professionals to secure software competitiveness. While previous studies had focused mainly on the cognitive effectiveness of software education, the authors tried to focus on affective perspectives. The authors, therefore, aimed to analyze the predictive power of the recognition of software importance and learning flow on affective outcomes, such as efficacy of computational thinking skills, and attitude toward, and satisfaction with, software education. The data were collected from 103 sixth grade students who participated in a software education. Results show that software importance and learning flow had significant predictive power on affective outcomes; Learning flow mediated the relationship between software importance and affective outcomes. This study provides practical implications for improving affective outcomes in the design and implementation of software education.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.3-11
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• 2019

To evaluate the suitability of UML (Unified Modelling Language) in terms of educating novice software engineers, we have conducted a survey study with 102 students who were enrolled in a mandatory course for sophomores in computer science and engineering department. The results indicate that UML 1) has high satisfaction rate among software novices as an education material, 2) improves computational thinking and problem-solving skills, and 3) increases the efficacy of learning when the education program is implemented in the order of UML, programming practice, and physical computing. This paper suggests the applicability of UML as a new education paradigm in software education.