An Exploratory Study on the Availability of Open Educational Resources to Support the Teaching and Learning of Programming

Abstract

This Research Full Paper presents an exploratory study on the availability of open educational resources (OERs) to support the teaching and learning of programming. Currently, programming is considered a fundamental course in many undergraduate programs. Moreover, many countries are teaching children and young people how to program, considering this as an essential skill in the future. However, students report many difficulties when they are learning to program due to limitations of abstraction/logic, syntax, structure, among others. Similarly, teachers also argue that teaching programming is an arduous task due to the preparation of presentations, correction of exercises and creation of projects. Objective: Given this scenario, our objective was analyze the availability of OERs - open materials that present different contents and formats distributed by internet - and their support for programming students and teachers. Method: Aiming to reach the aforementioned objective, we conducted an exploratory study among 3,990 OERs, using computational processing and descriptive statistic. Results: We analyzed the OER descriptions and compared them with the current programming challenges. Also, we investigated aspects of the availability of these materials. Conclusion: There are several OER available that can support teaching and learning of programming. However, to enhancing their dissemination, we must facilitate its discovery, reuse and sharing.