Supporting Acquisition of Programming Skills in Introductory Programming Education: Environments for Practicing Programming and Recording and Analysis of Exercise Sessions ; Ohjelmointitaitojen kehittämisen tukeminen ohjelmoinnin perusopetuksessa: ohjelmoinnin harjoitteluympäristöt ja työskentelyn tallentaminen ja analysointi

Author:

Helminen, Juha [claim]

Description:

The work in this thesis falls under two themes. First, we have experimented with a number of novel tools to lower the barrier to start practicing programming skills. Specifically, we present experiences on using Python novice environments that reduce the complexity of getting started with practicing programming in the following two ways. First, only a limited set of key functionality is provided in an integrated exercise environment. Second, only web technologies are used to improve portability and ease of access. Additionally, we present experiences on using a special type of program construction exercises, as well as, improvements to the automated feedback provided in these exercises. Finally, we present an application for practicing Python programming on mobile touch devices that is based on these exercises. As for the second theme, we have carried out automated recording of students' exercise sessions and explored what can be learned from such data. Particularly, we show how to visualize program construction exercise sessions as a graph in order to reveal common patterns and anomalies. We identified two overall patterns of constructing programs: line-by-line and control structures first. We also identified behavior that seems to be indicative of difficulties: backtracking, going in circles, and excessive, trial-and-error use of feedback. Additionally, we use this type of data to evaluate the effect of different types of feedback in program construction exercises. Students who received execution-based feedback needed on average more steps and took longer to solve an exercise than those who got line-based feedback. On the other hand, execution-based feedback was requested less frequently and the respective code was more commonly executable. Finally, we make use of automatically recorded data on programming sessions to identify and quantify how students use an interactive Python console, as well as, to study how frequently and which kinds of execution errors they encounter. Students made use of the console both ...

Publisher:

Aalto University ; Aalto-yliopisto

Contributors:

Ihantola, Petri, D.Sc. (Tech), Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Finland ; Karavirta, Ville, D.Sc. (Tech), Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Finland ; Perustieteiden korkeakoulu ; School of Science ; Tietotekniikan laitos ; Department of Computer Science and Engineering ; Malmi, Lauri, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Finland ; Learning + Technology Group (LeTech) ; Aalto-yliopisto ; Aalto University

Year of Publication:

2014

Document Type:

G5 Artikkeliväitöskirja ; text ; Doctoral dissertation (article-based) ; Väitöskirja (artikkeli) ; [Doctoral and postdoctoral thesis]

Language:

Subjects:

Computer science ; Education ; introductory programming education ; automated assessment ; program visualization ; novice programming environment ; program construction exercise ; mobile learning ; programming process ; programming session ; ohjelmoinnin perusopetus ; automaattinen arviointi ; ohjelmavisualisaatio ; aloittelijan ohjelmointiympäristö ; ohjelman rakennustehtävä ; mobiilioppiminen ; ohjelmointiprosessi ; ohjelmointisessio

DDC:

005 Computer programming, programs & data (computed)

Relations:

Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS ; 69/2014 ; [Publication 1]: Juha Helminen and Lauri Malmi. Jype – A Program Visualization and Programming Exercise Tool for Python. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Software Visualization (SOFTVIS’10), Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, pages 153–162, October 2010. doi:10.1145/1879211.1879234. ; [Publication 2]: Juha Helminen, Petri Ihantola, Ville Karavirta, and Lauri Malmi. How Do Students Solve Parsons Programming Problems? – An Analysis of Interaction Traces. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER ’12), Auckland, New Zealand, pages 119–126, September 2012. doi:10.1145/2361276.2361300. ; [Publication 3]: Ville Karavirta, Juha Helminen, and Petri Ihantola. A Mobile Learning Application for Parsons Problems with Automatic Feedback. In Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling ’12), Tahko, Finland, pages 11–18, November 2012. doi:10.1145/2401796.2401798. ; [Publication 4]: Juha Helminen, Petri Ihantola, Ville Karavirta, and Satu Alaoutinen. How Do Students Solve Parsons Programming Problems? – Execution-Based vs. Line-Based Feedback. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering (LaTiCE ’13), Macau, China, pages 55–61, March 2013. doi:10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.26. ; [Publication 5]: Juha Helminen, Petri Ihantola, and Ville Karavirta. Recording and Analyzing In-Browser Programming Sessions. In Proceedings of the 13th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling ’13), Koli, Finland, pages 13–22, November 2013. doi:10.1145/2526968.2526970. ; [Publication 6]: Petri Ihantola, Juha Helminen, and Ville Karavirta. How to Study Programming on Mobile Touch Devices – Interactive Python Code Exercises. In Proceedings of the 13th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling ’13), Koli, Finland, pages 51–58, November 2013. doi:10.1145/2526968.2526974. ; https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/13159

URL:

https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/13159

Content Provider:

Aalto-yliopiston julkaisuarkistoa (Aaltodoc)
Aalto University Publication Archive (Aaltodoc)