Assessing How Pre-requisite Skills Affect Learning of Advanced Concepts

Students often struggle with advanced computing courses, and comparatively few studies have looked into the reasons for this. It seems that learners do not master the most basic concepts, or forget them between courses. If so, remedial practice could improve learning, but instructors rightly will not use scarce time for this without strong evidence. Based on personal observation, program tracing seems to be an important pre-requisite skill, but there is yet little research that provides evidence for this observation. To investigate this, our group will create theory-based assessments on how tracing knowledge affects learning of advanced topics, such as data structures, algorithms, and concurrency. This working group will identify relevant concepts in advanced courses, then conceptually analyze their pre-requisites and where an imagined student with some tracing difficulties would encounter barriers. The group will use this theory to create instructor-usable assessments for advanced topics that also identify issues caused by poor pre-requisite knowledge. These assessments may then be used at the start and end of advanced courses to evaluate to what extent students\u2019 difficulties with the advanced course originate from poor pre-requisite knowledge

Proceedings of The Rust-Edu Workshop

The 2022 Rust-Edu Workshop was an experiment. We wanted to gather together as many thought leaders we could attract in the area of Rust education, with an emphasis on academic-facing ideas. We hoped that productive discussions and future collaborations would result. Given the quick preparation and the difficulties of an international remote event, I am very happy to report a grand success. We had more than 27 participants from timezones around the globe. We had eight talks, four refereed papers and statements from 15 participants. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I can say that I learned a ton. These proceedings are loosely organized: they represent a mere compilation of the excellent submitted work. I hope you’ll find this material as pleasant and useful as I have. Bart Massey 30 August 202

Empirical Evaluation of a Differentiated Assessment of Data Structures: The Role of Prerequisite Skills

There can be many reasons why students fail to answer correctly to summative tests in advanced computer science courses: often the cause is a lack of prerequisites or misconceptions about topics presented in previous courses. One of the ITiCSE 2020 working groups investigated the possibility of designing assessments suitable for differentiating between fragilities in prerequisites (in particular, knowledge and skills related to introductory programming courses) and advanced topics. This paper reports on an empirical evaluation of an instrument focusing on data structures, among those proposed by the ITiCSE working group. The evaluation aimed at understanding what fragile knowledge and skills the instrument is actually able to detect and to what extent it is able to differentiate them. Our results support that the instrument is able to distinguish between some specific fragilities (e.g., value vs. reference semantics), but not all of those claimed in the original report. In addition, our findings highlight the role of relevant skills at a level between prerequisite and advanced skills, such as program comprehension and reasoning about constraints. We also suggest ways to improve the questions in the instrument, both by improving the distractors of the multiple choice questions, and by slightly changing the content or phrasing of the questions. We argue that these improvements will increase the effectiveness of the instrument in assessing prerequisites as a whole, but also to pinpoint specific fragilities

Understanding conceptual transfer in students learning a new programming language

There is a large literature from at least as early as 1985 on the difficulties encountered in learning programming languages, and in particular additional programming languages. This thesis concentrates on how students transfer their knowledge from their first programming language to their second. The central idea is to adapt and use theories from linguistics of how people learn second natural languages to illuminate the problems of learning second programming languages. The major claim of this thesis is that: Semantic transfer based on syntax similarities plays a role in relative novices’ conceptual transfer between programming languages; the implementation of deliberate semantic transfer interventions during relative novices’ second language learning can lead to improved conceptual transfer and understanding in learning a second programming language. This thesis uses mixed methods to investigate how students transition from procedural Python to object-oriented (OO) Java. It includes a sequence of nine research studies building on each other. First, an exploratory qualitative study is carried out on how semantic transfer in natural language applies to programming language transfer; secondly, a Model of Programming Language Transfer (MPLT) is developed based on the first study’s findings; thirdly, four quantitative studies are carried out to validate the model; fourthly, a study that collects school teachers’ views and experiences on second language learning is carried out; fifthly, a study is conducted to explore transfer interventions with students; and the last study builds and investigates a pedagogy for transfer deriving from the MPLT. The findings support the thesis claim that semantic transfer based on syntax similarities plays a role in relative novices’ conceptual transfer between programming languages. The transfer can be positive when the first programming language (PL1) and the second programming language (PL2) share similar syntax and semantics, negative when PL1 and PL2 share similar syntax but have different semantics, and there is little or no transfer when PL1 and PL2 have different syntax but share similar semantics. The results also reveal that transfer teaching interventions based on the MPLT could improve conceptual transfer and understanding in students learning a second PL. The contribution of this thesis is two-fold: First, a validated model of programming language transfer that has three categories that reflect the types of potential transfer students encounter when learning a second programming language. The model provides a unified way to measure transfer in second language learning. Second, a validated unified pedagogical guideline for promoting transfer in programming languages derived from the MPLT. Researchers, educators and curriculum designers can use these instruments to advance research, teach, and design teaching materials. First, the researchers can use the instruments to further programming language transfer research by adopting them in other programming language contexts. Second, educators can use the instruments as a guideline for improving second and subsequent programming language teaching. Lastly, Computer Science (CS) curricular designers can draw on these instruments as guidance to design teaching material that promotes transfer as students transition to new programming languages. They can also use them for teacher professional development

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Matlab

This book is a collection of 19 excellent works presenting different applications of several MATLAB tools that can be used for educational, scientific and engineering purposes. Chapters include tips and tricks for programming and developing Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), power system analysis, control systems design, system modelling and simulations, parallel processing, optimization, signal and image processing, finite different solutions, geosciences and portfolio insurance. Thus, readers from a range of professional fields will benefit from its content

2007-2008 UNM CATALOG

Course catalog for the years 2007-2008.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/course_catalogs/1022/thumbnail.jp

2008-2009-UNM CATALOG

Course catalog for 2008-2009https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/course_catalogs/1098/thumbnail.jp

URI Undergraduate and Graduate Course Catalog 2004-2005

https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/course-catalogs/1056/thumbnail.jp