Mental models are mental representations of how an action changes a problem state. Creating a mental model early in the learning process is a strong predictor of success in computer science classes. One major problem in computer science education, however, is that novices have difficulty creating mental models perhaps because of the cognitive overload caused by traditional teaching methods. The present study employed subgoal-labeled instructional materials to promote the creation of mental models when teaching novices to program in Android App Inventor. Utilizing this and other well-established educational tools, such as scaffolding, to reduce cognitive load in computer science education improved the performance of participants on novel tasks when learning to develop mobile applications.

In his master's thesis Anshul Bhagi examines App Inventor game development. First he discusses the interest students have in developing graphically appealing, interactive single-player and multiplayer games using App Inventor. Bhagi then segues into a discussion of how the App Inventor team at MIT can prepare for the imminent growth of the App Inventor game development community. Accordingly, this thesis looks at where App Inventor currently stands with respect to game development and how its game development capabilities can be improved and extended.

In this paper, Turbak and colleagues from Wellesley College describe how visual blocks-based programming languages, Turtle Blocks and Picture Blocks, allow users to transform their designs into tangible artifacts by using laser cutters and vinyl cutters.