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Effects of Peer Interaction on Web-Based Computer Programming Learning
Abstract
This paper aimed to investigate an effectiveness of peer-interaction strategies on web-based computer programming. Totally, thirty-three computer science students participated in the programming course. The learning achievement was compared by using an e-learning system and a peer-interaction system. Moreover, the correlations between peer-interaction functions and their students’ learning achievement, and the students’ attitudes toward the new system were examined. The results demonstrated that there is no significant difference between using traditional e-learning system and the peer-interaction system. Furthermore, peer-interaction functions had a positive relationship with their learning achievement. Ultimately, it is found that students had positive attitudes toward the peer-interaction system.
... As discussed earlier, hence, web-based computer programming learning equipped with peer-assessment and question-generation seems to be a sound combination [27,28]. The researchers concluded that the system was well perceived, the students preferred to use the system more than conventional e-learning systems which provide no support for programming nor peer-assessment [7,29,30]. ...
This study seeks to investigate the effects of web-based computer programming learning, equipped with Questions and Answers, on students whose majors are not computer science. The proposed system allows five types of questions to be generated: essay, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-false, and coding. It is found that spending time to complete given tasks by interacting with questions is a significant predictor. Furthermore, academic performance is significantly correlated with participating in fill-in-the-blank, essay, and coding questions. Findings are also stated that there were no differences between academic performance and engagement regarding gender.
Studies suggest that the incorporation of online annotations in reading instruction can improve students’ reading comprehension. However, little research has addressed how students use online annotations in their reading processes and how such use may lead to their improvement. This study thus adopted Reciprocal Teaching (RT) as an instructional framework to support students’ reading comprehension progress and processes, facilitated by the use of online annotations. A total of 54 English language learners at a university were recruited to read with online annotations based on the RT procedure, namely predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. The data collected included the students’ scores on pre- and post-tests and their participation records in a collaborative learning environment. The results reveal that the students enhanced their reading comprehension after the intervention. Their reading processes were also analyzed, and the major differences between the groups making more and less progress were identified. Those who made more progress not only frequently reviewed their previously generated predictions, clarifications, questions, and summaries but also actively provided feedback to their peers in a reciprocal manner. Pedagogical implications and recommendations are discussed.
This study examines endogenous peer effects, which occur when a student’s behavior or outcome is a function of the behavior or outcome of his or her peer group. Endogenous peer effects have important implications for educational policies such as busing, school choice and tracking. In this study, we quantitatively review the literature on endogenous peer effects through the use of meta-analytic methods. We find a significant and positive endogenous peer effect. It appears to be a genuine empirical effect but is dependent on the measure of educational outcomes, the peer group, publication status and publication year.
This study investigated students' evaluating process and their perceptions of peer assessment when they engaged in peer assessment using Calibrated Peer Review. Calibrated Peer Review is a web-based application that facilitates peer assessment of writing. One hundred and thirty-two students in an introductory environmental science course participated in the study. Two self-reported surveys and a focus group interview were administered during the semester. The peer assessment data and demographic information were collected at the end of the semester. Although the study results support the agreement between peers and an expert, the variations in a group and individual level were found, in particular, when students evaluated mid-quality or low-quality writings regardless of their reviewing ability. Students tended to perceive that the process of evaluating peers' and own writings was helpful in their learning. Further, students' positive perceptions of peer assessment were associated with their understanding of the values of peer assessment tasks and their perceptions of achieving the course goal. We concluded that instructors should provide specific guidelines for how to decide a rating, use actual students' essays instead of instructor-developed samples to train students and require written explanation for rubric questions to reduce variation in students' ratings and promote learning.
Studies on student question-generation have mainly emphasized its value as an instructional intervention and examined its effects using experimental or action research methods. Although the theoretical foundations of student question-generation are sound and its empirical bases are solid, issues with regard to the nature of the enacted learning processes and their relationships with perceived value remain largely unexamined empirically. These issues should have important instructional implications, as well as empirical, methodological, and theoretical significance. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the nature of student question-generation learning processes using information processing and student approaches to learning theories; establish empirical evidence for multiple learning approaches and investigate whether any learning strategies and task value differences exist among different learning approaches; and examine the relationships among learning strategies, learning approaches, and task value. This study uses a survey research method and incorporates a student question-generation component into an undergraduate course that is part of a teacher preparation program. Instruments with established reliability and validity are used. This study has four major findings. First, within a student question-generation context, learners tend to activate learning strategies and use a deep learning approach when studying. Second, students may commit themselves to more than one learning approach during a specific task. Third, learners with different learning approaches are found to have statistically significant differences in their use of learning strategies and perceived task value. Fourth, learners who perceive more value in student question-generation tend to adopt a deep learning approach. The theoretical, methodological, and empirical significance of this study is highlighted, followed by suggestions for instructional implementations and future work.
Peer learning or, as commonly expressed, peer-assisted learning (PAL) involves school students who actively assist others to learn and in turn benefit from an effective learning environment. This research was designed to support students in becoming more autonomous in their learning, help them enhance their confidence level in tackling computer programming problems as well as to encourage them towards team work and collective effort. The main purpose of this research is to test the effectiveness of PAL on the C programming language course in the second semester of undergraduate level. For this purpose, an experiment group (peer students) and a control group were statistically compared in terms of midterm and final exam scores and the results showed that peer students were more successful in C programming language.
Novice programmers struggle to understand introductory programming concepts and this difficulty, associated with learning to program, contributes mainly to the lack of interest in the field of Computer Science at tertiary level. Programming assistance tools have been used to assist novice programmers extensively at education institutions. A programming assistance tool (PAT) is a software program that can be used by novice programmers to learn how to program and/or improve their understanding of programming concepts.
This study aimed to investigate an effectiveness of unidirectional and reciprocal teaching strategies on programming learning supported by web-based learning system (VPen); particularly, how differently effective these two teaching strategies would work. In this study novice programmers were exposed to three different conditions: 1) applying no strategies, 2) applying unidirectional teaching strategies, and 3) applying reciprocal teaching strategies during learning. The results demonstrated that most students had positive perceptions toward VPen and the strategies. In the aspect of cognitive level of programming concept and program writing, students who used unidirectional teaching strategy outperformed students who did not use
any strategy. The reason is that unidirectional teaching strategy facilitated students not only to write program codes but also to explain the structure and logic of codes to peers. On the other hand, students who used reciprocal teaching strategies outperformed students who used unidirectional teaching strategy on level of cognition of program concept and program writing. The reason is because the reciprocal teaching strategies, besides facilitating students to write program codes and to explain about them to peers, enabled students to interact with peers through questioning and clarifying each other’s codes. This study suggests applying reciprocal teaching strategies to enable students’ interaction, which facilitates learning, particularly of novice programmers. That is, students without prior knowledge and skills may obtain assistance from peers when they experience learning difficulties while the instructor is unavailable.
The advent of the Internet has caused an increase in content reuse, including source code. The purpose of this research is to uncover potential cases of source code reuse in large-scale environments. A good example is academia, where massive courses are taught to students who must demonstrate that they have acquired the knowledge. The need of detecting content reuse in quasi real-time encourages the development of automatic systems such as the one described in this paper for source code reuse detection. Our approach is based on the comparison of programs at character level. It is able to find potential cases of reuse across a huge number of assignments. It achieved better results than JPlag, the most used online system to find similarities among multiple sets of source codes. The most common obfuscation operations we found were changes in identifier names, comments and indentation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 9999:1–8, 2014; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21608
Although a number of existing systems support student-generated multiple choice questions, such questions tend to focus on lower-order cognitive skills. Free response questions are frequently used to evaluate higher-order thinking, but supporting student-generated free-response questions is challenging. StudySieve is a web-based tool that extends student-generated questions to the free-response domain. We report on the use of StudySieve for reviewing core content in three large undergraduate Computer Science courses. Students produce more content than required, provide feedback to their peers and report that they learn from question authoring, question answering, seeing the answers produced by their peers and evaluating those answers.
We report data from ten years of teaching with Peer Instruction (PI) in the calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics courses for nonmajors; our results indicate increased student mastery of both conceptual reasoning and quantitative problem solving upon implementing PI. We also discuss ways we have improved our implementation of PI since introducing it in 1991. Most notably, we have replaced in-class reading quizzes with pre-class written responses to the reading, introduced a research-based mechanics textbook for portions of the course, and incorporated cooperative learning into the discussion sections as well as the lectures. These improvements are intended to help students learn more from pre-class reading and to increase student engagement in the discussion sections, and are accompanied by further increases in student understanding.
Quality, outcomes and cost-effectiveness of methods of teaching and learning in colleges and universities are being scrutinised more closely. The increasing use of peer tutoring in this context necessitates a clear definition and typology, which are outlined. The theoretical advantages of peer tutoring are discussed and the research on peer tutoring in schools briefly considered. The substantial existing research on the effectiveness of the many different types and formats of peer tutoring within colleges and universities is then reviewed. Much is already known about the effectiveness of some types of peer tutoring and this merits wider dissemination to practitioners. Directions for future research are indicated.
Development of a Programming Learning System Based on a Question Generated Strategy
- C.-H Lai
- P.-D Tho
Lai, C.-H., & Tho, P.-D. (2016). Development of a Programming Learning System Based on a Question
Generated Strategy. Paper presented at the the 24th International Conference on Computers in
Education, India.
How to teach programming languages to novice students? Lecturing or not?
- Á Matthíasdóttir
Matthíasdóttir, Á. (2006). How to teach programming languages to novice students? Lecturing or not? Paper
presented at the International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies -CompSysTech'06.