Interviews With College Students: Evaluating Computer Programming Environments For Introductory Courses

Different methods, strategies, or tools have been proposed for teaching Object Oriented Programming (OOP). However, it is still difficult to introduce OOP to novice learners. The problem may be not only adopting a method or language, but also use of an appropriate integrated development environment (IDE). Therefore, the focus should be on the needs of learners when selecting an IDE and the evaluations for instructional purposes may allow making objective decisions for an introductory course design. There are different methods or frameworks for evaluating IDEs and the majority focuses on the experts’ needs. Unfortunately, studies done on instructional appropriateness of IDEs are insufficient. In this study, an evaluation framework is initially proposed, then the candidate IDEs are evaluated, and finally, the perceptions of college students are explored by conducting semi-structured interviews. The data are analyzed by the Verbal Analysis technique, and the results are discussed in view of the evaluation criteria. The results imply that the learners view one of the criteria relatively more supportive for learning

The Effects of Objects-First and Objects-Late Methods on Achievements of OOP Learners

Our research explored the effects of objects-first and objects-late methods on achievements of object-oriented programming (OOP) learners during a graduate course. The course’s scope was virtually identical for two groups, but the structure of the contents differed in sequence. The objects-first method emphasized the design and discussion of the object-oriented concepts from the very beginning while the objects-late deferred these concepts to the late lectures. The objects-first learners used all visual functionalities of BlueJ IDE. However, the objects-late learners started with only the text-based interfaces of BlueJ and they benefited its visual support in the last lectures. At the end of the study, we found that there was a statistically significant difference between OOP learner groups

The Relationship Between Burnout and Emotıonal Labour of The Employees in Hospıtal Sector

Emotions of the employees of especially the sectors like banking, tourism, and health care, in which the interaction with the customers is at utmost importance, are expected by the businesses to be properly managed. While the display of emotions by the employees according to the demands of the organization in respect to the payments made has positive contributions to the businesses, it might affect the employees in a negative way. In this study, the relationship between the emotional labour and burnout displayed by the nurses, the employees of one of the career groups in which high level of interaction with the human beings occur, while working in their organizations. In the study, emotional labour and burnout levels of 136 nurses, serving in a community hospital, have been measured by using “Emotional Labour Scale” which was developed by Çukur (2009), and whose validity and reliability studies have been done in Turkey, with Maslach Burnout Inventory. In the result of the study, it has been determined that there is a correlation between Emotional Labour with its sub-dimensions, and burnout with its sub-dimension

An empirical study in software engineering: the effects of project-based and project-supported methods on product and academic achievements

The studies show that many software projects exceed the estimated budget and schedule every year, or they are canceled on account of failure, and thus, this causes the waste of resources expressed in billion dollars. Software engineering education is one of the research areas aiming to produce solutions to this important problem. However, it is seen that there is still a need for large amount of skilled and educated software engineers required for the industry, and this workforce gap is also in an increasing fashion. One of the main reasons is thought to be the traditional or teacher-centered methods that are widely adopted in universities. On the other hand, software product development as well as learning and teaching processes, include a series of activities, which require their applications with a range at different levels. Therefore, the instructional methods should be adopted, which primarily concern the knowledge and skills that need to be acquired by engineering students together with the requirements and attributes of software systems to be developed in courses. Project-Assisted Instruction (PAI) and Project-Based Learning (PBL) can be given as examples for this type of methods. Therefore, in this research, the PBL and PAI methods are used in teaching the Database Management Systems Course, and their effects on academic achievements, product and project performances are explored. It is possible to say that the study has two contributions to the engineering research domain. First, (a) it is a study that compares PAI and PBL in an experimental setting. Second, (b) it presents the guidelines and prescriptions for the application of these methods for the domains of computer and software engineering education based on empirical findings