Western Kentucky University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences receives National Science Foundation grant

Western Kentucky University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has received a $305,326 grant from the National Science Foundation for the project “Improving Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Programming through an Interactive Flowchart-to-Code Environment,” led by Professors of Computer Science Dr. Guangming Xing and Dr. Huanjing Wang. The project intends to lower the high drop-fail-withdraw rates in introductory computer science courses by developing a tool called ChartCode to remove barriers that come along with learning complex computer language rules.

According to an article on Western Kentucky University’s website, Dr. Xing explained the ChartCode tool and how it will benefit students. He is quoted as saying, "Today, students write syntax first and hope the logic follows. ChartCode has them build the algorithm visually, watch it execute step-by-step, execution pointer moving, variables changing in memory, and only then see the Python, Java, or C++ generated from their own logic. Programming becomes something visible rather than something that happens invisibly inside the machine."

ChartCode will allow students to develop their code visually instead of jumping directly into the complex language rules that are needed to write computer code. These language rules are thought to be among the reasons students may withdraw from STEM courses, and the tool is intended to eliminate that barrier.

Western Kentucky University is the development hub for the project, with other participating institutions conducting research and creating a consortium. These other participating institutions are Texas A&M University–San Antonio, Purdue University, El Camino College, and Oakland Community College. At these partner institutions, 20 faculty members will incorporate ChartCode into their introductory computer programming courses and track the outcomes of students in these classrooms.

Dr. Xing said, "The consortium is a deliberate cross-section of undergraduate computing. WKU is an EPSCoR regional university serving rural and first-generation students; Texas A&M–San Antonio is a Hispanic-Serving Institution reaching a rapidly growing segment of the national student population; Purdue's CIT program is applied, high-enrollment computing; El Camino and Oakland Community College represent the two-year-to-four-year transfer pathway. That variation is the research design, it lets us ask whether the tool's benefit is universal or context-dependent."

Both graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in the process, by managing learning management system integration, building exercise libraries, running testing, and more. 

The grant period will last through September 2029. After the grant period ends, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will host ChartCode and will release course packages as Open Educational Resources.

Speaking of the project, Dr. Xing said, "It establishes WKU as a lead institution, not a junior partner — the platform was architected here and the national research agenda is set here, with an R1 and an HSI collaborating on the project. That's a meaningful statement about research capacity at a regional university in an EPSCoR state. It also puts WKU's CS program into the national computing-education conversation, funds substantive student research positions, and directly improves the courses where our own students are most likely to leave computing.”

For more information about Western Kentucky University, visit the school’s website.