Introductory Programming Classes Research Articles

Towards enhancing teaching and learning computer programming in Saudi Arabia

Globally, numerous students struggle with understanding computer programming, which is one of the most difficult courses in the computer science curriculum as stated in the literature. This is especially true in a diverse learning environment where students come from different disciplinary backgrounds, language skills, and cultures. Hence, to improve on the aforementioned challenges, another research introduces a framework that combines constructivist and collaborative learning theories with a student-centered teaching pedagogy for teaching postgraduate introductory programming classes at Central Queensland University, Australia. However, the framework will not work effectively when teaching computer programming courses to undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia. This is due to geographical differences, study levels, negative emotional issues, and stress affecting students' learning. Such as students' first view that programming is difficult, or the difference between students' and teachers' perspectives on learning (disciplinary backgrounds, language skills, and cultures). Therefore, this paper proposed a student-centered learning and teaching method that combines constructive alignment (consistency), collaborative learning theory (collaboration, conception, and cognition), and bits of Maslow's theory (love/belonging and self-actualization) in a student-centered teaching pedagogy. The research findings reveal that when using the existing method to teach Introduction to Computing-II (Object Oriented Programming in Java) at the University of Hafr Al Batin, Saudi Arabia, only 87.5% of students passed the course, while 12.5% failed. However, when using the proposed method 95.2% of the students passed the course, while only 4.8% failed. Thus, the proposed method clearly shows significant improvement, with the failure rate reducing from 12.5% to only 4.8%.

Emerging from the pandemic: instructor reflections and students' perceptions on an introductory programming course in blended learning.

Teaching an introductory programming course to first-year students has long been a challenge for many college instructors. The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused unprecedented shifts in learning modality across the globe, has worsened the learning experience of novice programmers. Instructors have to find innovative ways to keep students engaged and learning. Blended or hybrid learning has become a new preferred way of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Blended learning is viewed as a combination of both in-person and online instructions. Such a learning environment offers instructors the flexibility to provide learners with an engaging face-to-face learning experience while promoting the well-being and safety of students. Starting Fall 2020, York College (and other CUNY colleges) has since offered several courses in hybrid mode. Two years have passed since the abrupt transition. There were several lessons learned from the experiences. In this paper, I discussed evidence-based pedagogical approaches that were used to teach students in an introductory computer programming class at York College, CUNY, where blended learning was used. Student perceptions of learning experience and obtaining coding skills in both online and in-person environments are also presented. The findings from the survey suggested that students benefited from face-to-face interactions and feedback, while those who preferred an online environment liked the flexibility that online components offer. Through careful design and implementation of pedagogical approaches used in the class, novice programmers could potentially benefit from both face-to-face and online components of blended learning.

Influence factors on students motivation in introductory programming lectures of computer science non-majors

Programming is an essential part of the curriculum of computer science non-major students. The motivation for the various elements of interdisciplinary degrees is often very low in computer science, which faces a gender gap as well. Differences between study courses and gender in confidence, attitude, student numbers, and motivation in computer science are investigated. In addition, the influences of attitude, perception, and social background are considered. A questionnaire was designed based on an extensive research model for the purpose of this research. A survey was conducted with two cohorts of computer science non-major freshmen from two degrees in an introductory programming class at a university of applied sciences. The outcomes are compared against each other. First, an explorative factor analysis was performed. Afterwards, SmartPLS was used to test the developed model. The overall motivation of the participants is moderate and mostly influenced by their ability and effort beliefs. These constructs are different for men and women, but not for the degree programs, and have different impacts on motivation. In general, motivation is influenced by ability and effort beliefs, which in turn are mostly affected by perception and social background. While women show lower ability and higher effort beliefs, the males in the samples have opposite outcomes and thus a higher motivation in introductory programming classes.

Programming Education Using Scratch to Learn a Text-Based Programming Language

In this study, we conducted programming training sessions using Scratch in introductory programming classes for first-year students at information technology college and for new employees, and aimed to provide a text-based programming language skill based on their understanding of programming in Scratch. As a result, we found that students who were able to create contents using more than 1,000 blocks in Scratch showed higher proficiency in the text-based programming language. And, in the training for new employees, it was found that the teaching method using Scratch was particularly effective for new employees without computer-science background who had no programming experience.

How Early Is Early Enough: Correlating Student Performance With Final Grades

Student retention is one of the greatest challenges facing computer science programs. Difficulties in an introductory programming class often snowball, resulting in poor student performance or dropping the major completely. In this paper, we present an analysis of 197 students over 6 semesters from 11 sections of an introductory programming class at a private four-year liberal arts university in the southeastern United States. The goal of this research was to find the earliest point in the assessment sequence which could predict final grade outcomes. Accordingly, we measured the degree of correlation between student performance on quizzes, labs, programs, and tests compared to final course grade. Overall, the results show a strong positive correlation for all four assessment modalities. These results hold significance for educators and researchers insofar as the body of computing education research is extended by evaluating the relative effectiveness of early semester subsets of each of the four categories of student data to model class outcomes.

Development of an unfolding model of procedures for programming learning of novice programmers

AbstractThis study reduces the difficulties experienced by novice computer programmers when establishing a procedure for problem‐solving in a computing environment. It also provides guidelines to detail the work process. For this purpose, we developed an “unfolding model of procedures” consisting of the recognition of input and output, decomposition of operation, and expansion of branching based on its condition in work. To identify the effect of applying the unfolding model of procedures on the programming learning curve, we conducted an experiment with 110 college freshers randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The unfolding model was applied to the experimental group; however, both groups received introductory programming classes for 5 weeks. The experimental group showed a trend of significant improvement in deriving the input and output processes and expanded their judgment on conditions. The evaluation of flowcharts for the same task conveyed that the experimental group was more competent than the control group, and further analysis by sex revealed no difference between the sexes in the achievement of learning within either group. The experimental group showed an advantage over the control group irrespective of sex. In conclusion, we expect that the unfolding model of procedures developed in this study could be used as a tool for novice programmers to derive work procedures completely and systematically when interpreting human work in a computing environment at the early stages of learning to program.

A Flipped Classroom

This study explored students' perceptions of a flipped classroom for an introductory programming class. Students were required to watch video lectures and read lecture notes in advance (pre-class self-study) to prepare themselves for the in-class lectures and tutorials. A mix-methods approach was employed: quantitative survey (n=204) and qualitative interview (n=7) were administered simultaneously. The results suggested that students are not fully ready for a flipped classroom. Most of the students still prefer face-to-face in-class lectures and tutorials. The in-class activities have a positive impact on students' test performance, especially the male students. Peer learning however induces a negative impact on students' test performance, especially among the female students. Pre-class self-study has no impact on students' test performance, except for those without prior programming experience. Females outperform males even though they lack prior programming experience. Students, regardless of programming background, respond equally to a flipped classroom approach.

Comparing the Impact of Programming Assessment Type: In-Class Vs Take-Home

In engineering education, educational technologies and teaching interventions are often used to maintain the student retention high. Most of them are strongly related to either in-class or take-home assessment. This paper compares the impact of both assessments on student performance for one academic semester. The findings are expected to re-align the focus of educational technology and teaching intervention research. Fifty-five laboratory sessions were analysed, involving five Introductory Programming classes with a total of 87 Information Technology and Information System undergraduates. The study shows that, by considering only significant changes, in-class assessment leads to higher assessment mark as the students can easily seek help and focus on the tasks. Technical problems are also unlikely to occur as the classroom (or the laboratory in our case) is well-facilitated.

Improving Engagement in Program Construction Examples for Learning Python Programming

This research is focused on how to support students’ acquisition of program construction skills through worked examples. Although examples have been consistently proven to be valuable for student’s learning, the learning technology for computer science education lacks program construction examples with interactive elements that could engage students. The goal of this work is to investigate the value of the “engaging” features in programming examples. We introduce PCEX, an online tool developed to present program construction examples in an engaging fashion. We also present the results of a controlled study with a between-subject design that was conducted in a large introductory Python programming class to compare PCEX with non-interactive worked examples focused on program construction. The results of our study show the positive impact of interactive program construction examples on student’s engagement, problem-solving performance, and learning.

Comparing Block-Based and Text-Based Programming in High School Computer Science Classrooms

The number of students taking high school computer science classes is growing. Increasingly, these students are learning with graphical, block-based programming environments either in place of or prior to traditional text-based programming languages. Despite their growing use in formal settings, relatively little empirical work has been done to understand the impacts of using block-based programming environments in high school classrooms. In this article, we present the results of a 5-week, quasi-experimental study comparing isomorphic block-based and text-based programming environments in an introductory high school programming class. The findings from this study show students in both conditions improved their scores between pre- and postassessments; however, students in the blocks condition showed greater learning gains and a higher level of interest in future computing courses. Students in the text condition viewed their programming experience as more similar to what professional programmers do and as more effective at improving their programming ability. No difference was found between students in the two conditions with respect to confidence or enjoyment. The implications of these findings with respect to pedagogy and design are discussed, along with directions for future work.

Application of Active Learning Techniques to the Teaching of Introductory Programming

Over the past few decades, there has been a movement to try to incorporate active learning techniques into traditional university classes. The main idea is that traditional classroom learning is very passive with the professor lecturing and the students listening. Active learning tries to engage students with a variety of techniques, which are mainly variations of traditional teaching techniques. This paper provides an overview of how active learning techniques might be applied to introductory programming classes and gives several specific examples of how this might be done.

Impact of Automated Software Testing Tools on Reflective Thinking and Student Performance in Introductory Computer Science Programming Classes

The goal of this research was to investigate the effects of automated testing software on levels of student reflection and student performance. This was a self-selecting, between subjects design that examined the performance of students in introductory computer programming classes. Participants were given the option of using the Web-CAT software-testing tool to evaluate their computer code. Student self-reported levels of reflection were measured using reflective thinking survey.

Self-graded homework: Some empirical tests of efficacy

ABSTRACTAllowing students to grade their own homework promises many advantages. But can students perform such grading tasks honestly and accurately? Also, do such assessments vary by gender? To answer these questions, the authors analyzed the homework scores of 266 students in seven introductory programming classes. The statistical results were favorable to the hypothesis that students graded themselves fairly. Gender differences were slight, and more likely attributable to factors not connected with grading equity.

The Spinoza code tutor

Spinoza[5] is a web-based IDE developed using NodeJS to support active learning in intro-ductory programming classes. It encompass the best features from various systems like codingbat [1], cloudco...

Python for beginners

A survey found the language in use in introductory programming classes in the top U.S. computer science schools.

Community College Men and Women

Efforts to increase the number of women who pursue and complete advanced degrees in computer and information sciences (CIS) have been limited, in part, by a lack of research on pathways into and out of community college CIS classes. This longitudinal study tests three widely held beliefs about how to increase the number of CIS majors at 4-year universities, particularly among females. Data were collected from 741 women and men from 15 community colleges in California who enrolled in an introductory programming class. The results highlight the importance of preparation and interactions with professors for male students, and of motivational, relational, and behavioral factors for female students, specifically peer support, expectations for success in computing, and computer gaming.

Creating animated goal-driven interactive games in processing with mouse and keyboard input

Gaming is an enormously popular recreational activity in recent decades. We leverage its popularity in an introductory programming class at UNC Asheville to encourage the student to explore the cre...

STUDIO-BASED LEARNING IN AN INTRODUCTORY PROGRAMMING CLASS: A COLLABORATIVE STUDY

Studio-Based Learning (SBL) is an approach to teaching and learning that emphasizes the collaborative application of course skills, critical analysis, and communication. Design-oriented components of SBL include: (1) Construction of a solution, (2) Presentation of the solution, (3) Peer review of the solution, and (4) Modification of solution integrating peer review. This paper describes an implementation and the results to date of the SBL approach at two sister institutions in the introductory programming classes. This experiment is part of a NSF funded CPATH study on the use of Studio-Based Learning in computing classes being conducted among multiple institutions.

Towards minimizing pair incompatibilities to help retain under-represented groups in beginning programming courses using pair programming

Pair programming usually consists of two people collectively programming under prescribed rules. Pair programming has been shown to help students in beginning programming courses learn material and be retained in computing fields (especially for under-represented minorities). However, an open question remains: what are the best methods for choosing pairs to try to avoid incompatibility in introductory programming classes to help retain under-represented groups? This paper compares pairing incompatibilities between two types of academic pairings. Preliminary results show academic pairings based on pair programming lab performance may be more promising than academic pairings based on individual test performance.

The effect of visualizing roles of variables on student performance in an introductory programming course

The use of variables in computer programming is one of the difficulties faced by students enrolled in introductory level programming classes. The Roles of Variables (ROV) concept associates small comprehensible roles to variables to help novice programmers comprehend how variables should be used. This paper describes an experiment that was conducted to test the effect of different engagement levels with ROV visualization on student programming skills. 91 Female students at King Abdul Aziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, participated in the experiment. The students were divided into three groups where they all had the ROV concept explained to them in a traditional classroom setting, but were given different visualization treatments during lab sessions. Results showed that while viewing the ROV visualization significantly improved student debugging skills, no other significant effects on student programming skills were reported.