First-year Programming Course Research Articles

Exploring the Validity of Continuous Assessment in a First-Year Programming Course at a Comprehensive Open Distance e-Learning University

Continuous assessments are commonly used to determine students’ level of understanding to implement measures to address any shortcomings. Assessment practices of programming courses at distance universities have always had numerous drawbacks due to large student bodies and time constraints. The large student body, in most instances, creates questions related to the validity and authenticity of the assessments. Time constraints in grading large numbers of assessments create questions related to the validity and authenticity of the feedback on assessments. The assumption is that the more assessments required for programming courses in a distance learning environment, the more chances there are for cheating and the less time there is to provide feedback for learning. This paper will investigate and report on assessment practices that were adopted in a first-year programming course to ensure valid authentic continuous assessment. Experiences shared in this paper offer programming instructors and the e-learning community, in general, an opportunity to make decisions on the extent to which they can use the continuous assessment strategies employed in their own settings.

Teaching highly mixed-ability CS1 classes: A proposed approach.

With the increased reliance on technology, computer programming has emerged as an essential skill that is interesting to many audiences beyond merely computer scientists. As a result, many students from various disciplines take first-year computer science courses. This led to classrooms with a lot of diversity in student motivation, backgrounds, learning needs, and educational levels. Teaching the same material to such a diverse group is challenging. The aim of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, we present a flipped-based approach that benefits from the mixed-ability nature of first-year programming courses rather than considering it as a burden. Secondly, we present a study that evaluates the extent to which the proposed approach enhances student learning in such a mixed-ability environment. The study was conducted in a first-year course at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan, and it was based on three components:1) a survey of 25 Likert items(n = 46), 2) class average grade and pass rate over 6 years (n = 42 + 38 + 56 + 79 + 90 + 74), and 3) student ratings of the course over 5 years (n = 42 + 38 + 56 + 79 + 90). Findings of the survey indicate an overall positive students’ impression with no significant difference in the opinions of various student populations. Analyzing the course grades, pass rates, and student ratings confirmed the survey findings and showed an overall improvement in grades, pass-rates, and student satisfaction.

Use of a Cornerstone Project to Teach Ill-Structured Software Design in First Year

Contribution: A first-year programming course was redesigned with a large, open-ended robotics project. The course design aligns with best practices for promoting development of students' self-efficacy in solving ill-structured software design problems. Background: From Jonassen's theory, problem-solving outcomes are dependent on the problem structure, complexity, and representation; and the characteristics of the solver. These characteristics are diverse, including knowledge, familiarity, and psychometric qualities of the solver (e.g., self-efficacy and motivation). Thus, better problem-solving outcomes are dependent on the development of these traits, and on the problem characteristics. Intended Outcomes: Pre-2010, course learning activities and assessments overly focused on syntax. The course was redesigned with a focus on ill-structured problem solving and design in high-fidelity problem domains. Application Design: Complex and ill-structured lecture examples, assignments, and exams were redesigned to reinforce the importance of software design and problem solving. An open-ended cornerstone project using robotics was added as a structured means of providing students practice with solving ill-structured and open-ended problems. The assignment and exam questions, with the course cornerstone project, achieve instructional alignment in the course. Findings: The results show that students' self-efficacy improved from start to end of term. The course design achieves several objectives: 1) students learned the requisite programming skills; 2) students developed their self-efficacy in programming and design; and 3) students demonstrated strong problem-solving outcomes.

事前学習と課題への取り組みを中心とした初年次プログラミング教育の実践

First-year programming courses in departments of computer science contain a mixture of novice and experienced students. It is therefore difficult to optimize the organization of classes to meet all student needs. Students also have varying degrees of motivation to participate in lectures and differences in comprehension levels. Since 2013, we have been implementing self-paced learning plans in programming courses through team-teaching. In this study, downloadable PowerPoint slides and video-streaming resources were provided to the students as preparatory materials for the lecture in order to effectively support their various learning styles. This study describes the implementation of our course and provide insights from the survey on lecture preparation and submitting their programming exercises.

Visualising Individual Profiles and Grouping Conditions in Collaborative Learning Activities

Collaborative learning has been shown to be conducive to better and deeper learning for particular tasks, but is dependent on a number of factors, including how students are grouped together. We are interested in finding out whether data captured from students working individually and/or collaboratively can reveal useful information about the impact of the grouping conditions on learning. We explore whether these findings can be detected early on (possibly, before students start working in groups). If such information can be reliably captured, then it could be used to drive group formation dynamically and at a large scale. This paper presents our initial visual exploration with two case studies: one from a first-year programming course (N = 372) where students alternately worked individually and in pairs; and another (N = 60) from a concept mapping environment where students first worked individually and then in groups.

Translating Principles of Effective Feedback for Students into the CS1 Context

Learning the first programming language is challenging for many students. High failure rates and bimodally distributed grades lead to a pedagogical interest in supporting students in first-year programming courses (CS1). In higher education, the important role of feedback for guiding the learning process and improving the learning outcome is widely acknowledged. This article introduces contemporary models of effective feedback practice as found in the higher education literature and offers an interpretation of those in the CS1 context. One particular CS1 course and typical course components are investigated to identify likely loci for feedback interventions and to connect related computer science education literature to these forms of feedback.

RETHINKING THE FIRST YEAR PROGRAMMING COURSE

The use of microcontrollers in beginning programming classes has been found to increase student learning and enthusiasm. Microcontroller programming has been successfully used in advanced undergraduate courses as a way to reinforce previous learning and to practice design, and in beginning undergraduate courses to introduce basic programming concepts in an engaging and relevant manner. Based on observations in a third year undergraduate course that included both traditional and microcontroller programming, a case is made for using a user-friendly microcontroller, instead of a traditional full-featured language, to teach fundamental programming concepts to novice engineering students.

Proglets for first-year programming in Java

Applets are little applications. Proglets are little programs. The author advocates the use of proglets in first-year programming courses to encourage students to investigate aspects of the language being taught, to test (parts of) algorithms, and to have fun. The writing of proglets allows beginning students to concentrate on their current concerns without being overwhelmed by the requirement to write assignment quality programs worthy of a fully-trained software engineer. The author has used proglets during three semesters to help students in repeat offerings of first-year programming courses which used Java as the teaching language.

Measuring card sort orthogonality

: Card sorts can be used to study the way human subjects acquire and organize conceptual knowledge. Analyses of card sorts often involve subjective examination of criteria or category names or using clustering techniques, neither of which lend themselves well to direct statistical analysis. This paper defines NMST, a quantitative measure of knowledge discrimination based on repeated, single-criterion card sorts that is independent of criteria or category names and that is particularly amenable to statistical analysis. The NMST measure is illustrated by applying it to a particular data set collected in a large multinational card sort study of subjects, where the knowledge area comes from a first-year programming course. Applied to this data set, the NMST measure is shown to distinguish, with statistical significance, between a set of subjects with only an introduction to programming and a set of subjects who have completed the equivalent of a bachelor's degree or higher in a computing-related discipline.