Informatics in Education

Spark, one of the products offered by MyQ (formerly Plethora), is a game-based platform meticulously designed to introduce students to the foundational concepts of computer science. By navigating through logical challenges, users delve into topics like abstraction, loops, and graph patterns. Setting itself apart from its counterparts, Spark boasts an innovative formal language and a rich set of features. Unlike traditional platforms, Spark emphasizes computational problem solving over programming syntax, making it accessible to learners of all levels. With progressively challenging levels and an intuitive graphical interface, students engage in problem solving, content creation, and collaboration within the MyQ community. Using Spark makes it less probable for students to utilize generative AI (GAI) to solve challenges, thereby sparing teachers the struggle of assessing tasks that might have been accomplished using GAI.

In a previous publication we examined the connections between high-school computer science (CS) and computing higher education. The results were promising—students who were exposed to computing in high school were more likely to take one of the computing disciplines. However, these correlations were not necessarily causal. Possibly those students who took CS courses, and especially high-level CS courses in high school, were already a priori inclined to pursue computing education. This uncertainty led us to pursue the current research. We aimed at finding those factors that induced students to choose CS at high school and later at higher-education institutes. We present quantitative findings obtained from analyzing freshmen computing students' responses to a designated questionnaire. The findings show that not only did high-school CS studies have a major impact on students’ choice whether to study computing in higher education—it may have also improved their view of the discipline.