Voluntary participation in discussion forums as an engagement indicator : An empirical study of teaching first-year programming
Conference paper
Sharma, Ritu, Shen, Haifeng and Goodwin, Robert. (2016). Voluntary participation in discussion forums as an engagement indicator : An empirical study of teaching first-year programming. OzCHI '16: The 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia - November 29 - December 02, 2016. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). pp. 489-493 https://doi.org/10.1145/3010915.3010967
Authors | Sharma, Ritu, Shen, Haifeng and Goodwin, Robert |
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Type | Conference paper |
Abstract | Computer programming is a required skill for most STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students. However, teaching novices programming has long been considered a big challenge by computer science educators as manifested by the observation that first-year programming topics tend to have a higher failure rate than other first-year topics. Existing studies have discovered that lack of engagement in learning programming is a key determinant of a student's poor performance. Therefore, it is beneficial to perceive a student's lack of engagement so that appropriate actions can be taken ahead of time. However, first year topics especially programming topics usually have very large enrolments, making it hard for a lecturer to keep track of each individual student's engagement level. As learning management systems (LMS) have been widely adopted by universities, in this paper we suggest using a student's voluntary participation in a programming topic's discussion forum provided by LMS as an engagement indicator so that the lecturer can constantly monitor and re-engage those who present low or no engagement. This recommendation is based on an empirical study of a first-year programming topic that reveals a positive correlation between one's voluntary participation in peer interaction through the topic's discussion forum and one's learning outcome in the topic. |
Keywords | first-year programming; engagement; learning management system; discussion forum; empirical study |
Year | 2016 |
Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1145/3010915.3010967 |
Scopus EID | 2-s2.0-85012012689 |
Publisher's version | License All rights reserved File Access Level Controlled |
Page range | 489-493 |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | Nov 2016 |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 03 Dec 2021 |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8x299/voluntary-participation-in-discussion-forums-as-an-engagement-indicator-an-empirical-study-of-teaching-first-year-programming
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