Improving CS1 Programming Learning with Visual Execution Environments

IF 2.4 Q3 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS Information (Switzerland) Pub Date : 2023-10-20 DOI:10.3390/info14100579
Raquel Hijón-Neira, Celeste Pizarro, John French, Pedro Paredes-Barragán, Michael Duignan
{"title":"Improving CS1 Programming Learning with Visual Execution Environments","authors":"Raquel Hijón-Neira, Celeste Pizarro, John French, Pedro Paredes-Barragán, Michael Duignan","doi":"10.3390/info14100579","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Students in their first year of computer science (CS1) at universities typically struggle to grasp fundamental programming concepts. This paper discusses research carried out using a Java-based visual execution environment (VEE) to introduce fundamental programming concepts to CS1 students. The VEE guides beginner programmers through the fundamentals of programming, utilizing visual metaphors to explain and direct interactive tasks implemented in Java. The study’s goal was to determine if the use of the VEE in the instruction of a group of 63 CS1 students from four different groups enrolled in two academic institutions (based in Madrid, Spain and Galway, Ireland) results in an improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts. The programming concepts covered included those typically found in an introductory programming course, e.g., input and output, conditionals, loops, functions, arrays, recursion, and files. A secondary goal of this research was to examine if the use of the VEE enhances students’ understanding of particular concepts more than others, i.e., whether there exists a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE. The results of the study found that use of the VEE in the instruction of these students resulted in a significant improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts compared with a control group who received instruction without the use of the VEE. The study also found a pronounced improvement in the students’ grasp of particular concepts (e.g., operators, conditionals, and loops), suggesting the presence of a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE.","PeriodicalId":38479,"journal":{"name":"Information (Switzerland)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information (Switzerland)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/info14100579","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Students in their first year of computer science (CS1) at universities typically struggle to grasp fundamental programming concepts. This paper discusses research carried out using a Java-based visual execution environment (VEE) to introduce fundamental programming concepts to CS1 students. The VEE guides beginner programmers through the fundamentals of programming, utilizing visual metaphors to explain and direct interactive tasks implemented in Java. The study’s goal was to determine if the use of the VEE in the instruction of a group of 63 CS1 students from four different groups enrolled in two academic institutions (based in Madrid, Spain and Galway, Ireland) results in an improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts. The programming concepts covered included those typically found in an introductory programming course, e.g., input and output, conditionals, loops, functions, arrays, recursion, and files. A secondary goal of this research was to examine if the use of the VEE enhances students’ understanding of particular concepts more than others, i.e., whether there exists a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE. The results of the study found that use of the VEE in the instruction of these students resulted in a significant improvement in their grasp of fundamental programming concepts compared with a control group who received instruction without the use of the VEE. The study also found a pronounced improvement in the students’ grasp of particular concepts (e.g., operators, conditionals, and loops), suggesting the presence of a topic-dependent benefit to the use of the VEE.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
用可视化执行环境改进CS1编程学习
大学计算机科学(CS1)一年级的学生通常很难掌握基本的编程概念。本文讨论了使用基于java的可视化执行环境(VEE)向CS1学生介绍基本编程概念的研究。VEE通过编程基础指导初级程序员,利用可视化比喻来解释和指导在Java中实现的交互任务。该研究的目的是确定在两个学术机构(分别位于西班牙马德里和爱尔兰戈尔韦)的四个不同组的63名CS1学生的教学中使用VEE是否能提高他们对基本编程概念的掌握。所涉及的编程概念包括在入门编程课程中常见的概念,例如输入和输出、条件、循环、函数、数组、递归和文件。本研究的第二个目标是检验VEE的使用是否比其他方法更能提高学生对特定概念的理解,即使用VEE是否存在主题依赖的好处。研究结果发现,在这些学生的教学中使用VEE,与没有使用VEE的对照组相比,他们对基本编程概念的掌握有了显著的提高。研究还发现,学生对特定概念(例如,运算符、条件和循环)的掌握有明显的改善,这表明使用VEE有主题依赖的好处。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
Information (Switzerland)
Information (Switzerland) Computer Science-Information Systems
CiteScore
6.90
自引率
0.00%
发文量
515
审稿时长
11 weeks
期刊最新文献
Weakly Supervised Learning Approach for Implicit Aspect Extraction Science Mapping of Meta-Analysis in Agricultural Science An Integrated Time Series Prediction Model Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition and Two Attention Mechanisms Context-Aware Personalization: A Systems Engineering Framework Polarizing Topics on Twitter in the 2022 United States Elections
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1