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
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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.
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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。
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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
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