Codification Pedagogy for Introductory Procedural Programming Courses

Abstract

Generally, students in introductory programming courses (CS1) do not devote time to designing solutions to their programming problems, even though it is a necessary part of the problem-solving process. Without the design process to reflect on a problem, students might haphazardly solve them, but with incomplete solutions. Students might skip the design process because they have limited design knowledge and lack the skills to help them identify goals and create a plan for solving a problem. Students might also ignore problem-solving information provided to them and instead rely on past problem-solving approaches, which keeps them from learning both new problem-solving strategies and new programming concepts. This research explores a pedagogical approach for procedural programming assignments facilitated within an online learning environment that encourages CS1 students to incorporate the design process into their problem-solving process. This thesis refers to the pedagogical approach as the Codification Pedagogy, a teaching approach for ordering rules corresponding to a plan. The pedagogy is designed to help students identify goals and create plans for solving problems. The pedagogy is comprised of three learning activities: 1. A scaffolded assignment presentation designed to help students better understand the programming problem. The assignment presentation helps students identify the problem’s goals and provides additional support for struggling students. This research produces a framework that educators can use to develop scaffolded presentations for CS1 programming assignments. 2. A questioning activity that encourages students to engage their internal knowledge to solve the current problem. This research produces a questioning framework. The framework contains instructional questions mapped to the Bloom’s Taxonomy cognitive levels. The framework can help educators construct learning activities through questioning to help elevate students’ cognitive level appropriate for their learning. 3. A Parsons problems activity designed to help students organise an implementation plan. Parsons problems is a learning tool that has students arrange code fragments to form a working program. The research demonstrates that Parsons problems can be used to help students organise plans to solve programming problems. The Codification Pedagogy is integrated into CS1 programming assignments. Studies were conducted for three semesters in an introductory programming course offered at the University of Adelaide. The research comprises quantitative studies using interactive analytics and variable-oriented analysis, along with qualitative studies using mixed methods that include pre-post tests, think-alouds, and interview sessions. The pedagogy is designed to help students better understand the programming problem and support their learning of problem-solving strategies for practical programming assignments. The results from this thesis demonstrates the pedagogy can support students during the design process. The studies presented in this thesis shows the pedagogy supporting students’ use of problem-solving strategies that help them to identify goals for the problems and enable them to validate their programming solutions. The results also show the learning activities encouraging students to analyse the assignment, promoting self-reflection that reduce misconceptions. Through its design-based support, the pedagogy can support students to successfully complete programming assignments.