Can We Conduct A Social Construction Based Epistemology for CS1 and CS2 Students? (Abstract Only)

Abstract

Social construction based learning approaches have been employed in computing education, but none of them has actually evaluated the effectiveness of the student reflection mechanism, which plays a key role in the learner's assimilation and accommodation process that builds upon the student's existing knowledge as part of the action learning within these approaches. Adapting the inquiry based knowledge building of the social construction model, this poster presents a process of student reflection that uses a unique, non-traditional method of interactive question-answer dialogue for engaging CS1 and CS2 students in a reflective assessment before the actual action learning cycle begins. This process of reflection helps students analyze their conceptual understandings and identify problems or limitations within their respective cognitive models prior to the actual process of knowledge refining or creation. In order to ensure that students have successfully reflected upon their conceptual beliefs, a software tool based assessment is then carried out. The answers from the social interaction based reflective assessment are compared with the results obtained through the software based traditional assessment in order to validate the student reflection process in the form of a social construction based epistemology. This research experiment also presents an authentic and relevant problem basis in the form of conceptual gaps for students to address within the action learning pedagogy of social construction. Results from the conducted comparative analysis in this case study show encouraging evidences confirming the validity of student comprehensions and assumptions by evaluating the knowledge discovery process through an epistemic investigation.