Emergent requirements for supporting introductory programming

The problems associated with learning and teaching first year University Computer Science (CS1) programming classes are summarized showing that various support tools and techniques have been developed and evaluated. From this review of applicable support the paper derives ten requirements that a support tool should have in order to improve CS1 student success rate with respect to learning and understanding

Visual iconic object-oriented programming to advance computer science education and novice programming

Learning how to program a computer is difficult for most people. Computer programming is a cognitively challenging, time consuming, labor intensive, and frustrating endeavor. Years of formal study and training are required to learn a programming language\u27s world of algorithms and data structures. Instructions are coded in advance before the computer demonstrates the desired behavior. Seeing all the programming steps and instruction code is complicated. There exists a tremendous gap between the representations the human brain uses when thinking about a problem and the representations used in programming a computer. Often people are much better at dealing with specific, concrete objects than working with abstract ideas. Concrete and specific programming examples and demonstrations can be very useful. When cleverly chosen and properly used, programming examples and demonstrations help people understand the abstract concepts. Programming by example or demonstration attempts to extend these novel ideas to novice programming

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Service Learning Models Connecting Computer Science to the Community

Service learning is an educational experience that enables students to apply material learned in the classroom by volunteering in a real-world situation. This paper provides a brief review of service learning and describes two models that the computer science department at Saint Anselm College implemented successfully

An Exploration Of The Effects Of Enhanced Compiler Error Messages For Computer Programming Novices

Computer programming is an essential skill that all computing students must master and is increasingly important in many diverse disciplines. It is also difficult to learn. One of the many challenges novice programmers face from the start are notoriously cryptic compiler error messages. These report details on errors made by students and are essential as the primary source of information used to rectify those errors. However these difficult to understand messages are often a barrier to progress and a source of discouragement. A high number of student errors, and in particular a high frequency of repeated errors – when a student makes the same error consecutively – have been shown to be indicators of students who are struggling with learning to program. This instrumental case study research investigates the student experience with, and the effects of, software that has been specifically written to help students overcome their challenges with compiler error messages. This software provides help by enhancing error messages, presenting them in a straightforward, informative manner. Two cohorts of first year computing students at an Irish higher education institution participated over two academic years; a control group in 2014-15 that did not experience enhanced error messages, and an intervention group in 2013-14 that did. This thesis lays out a comprehensive view of the student experience starting with a quantitative analysis of the student errors themselves. It then views the students as groups, revealing interesting differences in error profiles. Following this, some individual student profiles and behaviours are investigated. Finally, the student experience is discovered through their own words and opinions by means of a survey that incorporated closed and open-ended questions. In addition to reductions in errors overall, errors per student, and the key metric of repeated error frequency, the intervention group is shown to behave more cohesively with fewer indications of struggling students. A positive learning experience using the software is reported by the students and the lecturer. These results are of interest to educators who have witnessed students struggle with learning to program, and who are looking to help remove the barrier presented by compiler error messages. This work is important for two reasons. First, the effects of error message enhancement have been debated in the literature – this work provides evidence that there can be positive effects. Second, these results should be generalisable at least in part, to other languages, students and institutions

Question Driven Introductory Programming Instruction: A Pilot Study

For most beginners, learning computer programming is a complex undertaking. Demotivation and learned helplessness have been widely reported. In addition to the subject’s complexity, low in-class involvement has been linked to poor student performance. This work introduces a novel instructional technique called Student-Driven Probe Instruction (SDPI) to address the low levels of in-class involvement in basic programming courses. The concept was straightforward: rather than the teacher lecturing/explaining material to the class and requesting questions, the students were shown a piece of code or other relevant material and given the opportunity to ask questions first. Explanations followed only after the questions had been asked, not before. Participation was tracked through two metrics: the number of questions asked in class and emails/Slack contacts with the instructor. Significant improvements were recorded for in-class participation. Average quiz scores also improved meaningfully. According to a course evaluation survey, students favored SDPI over the conventional lecture format since it piqued their interest in the material and gave them the confidence to ask questions in class

Novice programmers and the problem description effect.

It is often debated whether a problem presented in a straightforward minimalist fashion is better, or worse, for learning than the same problem presented with a real-life or concrete context. The presentation, contextualization, or problem description has been well studied over several decades in disciplines such as mathematics education and psychology; however, little has been published in the field of computing education. In psychology it has been found that not only the presence of context, but the type of context can have dramatic results on problem success. In mathematics education it has been demonstrated that there are non-mathematical factors in problem presentation that can affect success in solving the problem and learning. The contextual background of a problem can also impact cognitive load, which should be considered when evaluating the effects of context. Further, it has been found that regarding cognitive load, computer science has unique characteristics compared to other disciplines, with the consequence that results from other disciplines may not apply to computer science, thus requiring investigation within computer science. This paper presents a multi-national, multi-institutional study of the effects of problem contextualization on novice programmer success in a typical CS1 exercise

An investigation into influence factor of student programming grade using association rule mining

Computer programming is one of the most essential skills which each graduate has to acquire.However, there are reports that they are unable to write a program well. Researches indicated there are many factors can affect student programming performance.Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the significant factors that may influence students programming performance based information from previous student performance using data mining technique. Data mining is a data analysis technique that able to discover hidden knowledge in database. The programming dataset used in this study comprises information on the performance profile of Universiti Utara Malaysia students from 4 different bachelor programs that were Bachelor in Information Technology , Bachelor in Multimedia, Bachelor in Decision Science and Bachelor in Education specializing in IT of the November session year 2004/2005. They were required to enroll introductory programming subject as requirement to graduate . The dataset consisting of 4 19 records with 70 attributes were pre-processed and then mined using directed association rule mining algorithm namely Apriori. The result indicated that the student who has been exposed to programming prior to entering university and scored well in Mathematics and English subject during secondary Malaysian School Certificate examination were among strong indicators that contributes to good programming grades. This finding can be a guideline to the faculty to plan a teaching and learning program for new registered student