Comprehensive Assessment on Factors Affecting Students' Performance in Basic Computer Programming Course towards the Improvement of Teaching Techniques

Abstract

Learning how to program correctly is a challenging task for both the students and the instructors. In this regard, basic computer programming course’s instructors play a significant role for the students, as what they will learn in an introductory course will be the foundation for their further programming studies. This paper studies the factors of both instructors and students that affect the latter’s performance in the basic computer programming course offered by the Information Technology Department (IT Department) of King Saud University (KSU). A questionnaire was distributed to and retrieved from target respondents for data collection. Frequency count and chi-square test were used to analyze the responses gathered. Results showed that there is no significant relationship between the students’ factors and instructors’ factors as perceived by students in the course. However, the respondents noted the most important to least important factors that will assist the university and its faculty to concentrate on the areas that needs to be maintained and areas that needs to improve in teaching and learning process which will lead to the improvement of teaching techniques in computer programming courses but also continuous provision of quality education in Saudi Arabia.