Can Students Learn from Grading Erroneous Computer Programs?

Abstract

Learning from erroneous examples involves the intentional inclusion of errors as part of the learning process. Prior works, mostly from the field of mathematics, have investigated how this can be used in blended learning environments to help students. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most learning activities have shifted to online, motivating us to study and utilize students’ use of an existing grading platform. Students were tasked to evaluate various degrees of erroneous answers as their learning opportunities, resembling program debugging. The grading process was engineered to supply feedback to students by revealing the actual marks and remarks to help them address their misconceptions and prepare them for an upcoming exam. This study presents our findings from clickstream data of students taking a synchronous online Computer Informatics class. How different students approached the activity was looked into: the amount of time spent and the difference of their assigned grade to that of a subject expert’s. Although it is still inconclusive whether students learned from erroneous computer programs, we found that students who were proactive in seeking feedback had better midterm scores than those who were not. This underscores the importance of feedback in this learning process.