Clusters of Solvers' Behavioral Patterns Based on Analysis of the Programming Process

Investigation of the programming process can provide teachers with valuable information regarding the practicalities of teaching and diverse programming styles. When grouping learners according to behavioral patterns, it is essential to determine the characteristics of the learners with the lower ex...

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Veröffentlicht in:Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference S. 1 - 6
Hauptverfasser: Meier, Heidi, Lepp, Marina
Format: Tagungsbericht
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: IEEE 18.10.2023
Schlagworte:
behavioral patterns
Behavioral sciences
clustering
Debugging
Education
Informatics
introductory programming
programming process analysis
Programming profession
Receivers
Syntactics
ISSN:2377-634X
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Zusammenfassung:Investigation of the programming process can provide teachers with valuable information regarding the practicalities of teaching and diverse programming styles. When grouping learners according to behavioral patterns, it is essential to determine the characteristics of the learners with the lower exam scores. Using this knowledge, the teaching and learning processes can be made more effective. Considering the above, this article poses two research questions: 1) What types of solvers can be differentiated from the analysis of the programming process? 2) Are there statistically significant differences in the midterm exam scores of different solver types? The data for the analysis were collected from the log files of the students' first programming course. Four features were calculated and used in the analysis: the number of program executions, the number of error messages, the percentage of typed characters of the program at the first run, and the percentage of syntax errors. Four types of solvers were identified using the k-means cluster analysis: 1) Frequent pressers of the run button; 2) Receivers of syntax errors; 3) Balanced solvers; 4) Late starters of the program execution. Using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests, it was observed that the "Receivers of syntax errors" and the "Late starters of the program execution" had statistically significantly lower scores on the midterm exam than the "Balanced solvers". The study reveals the importance of program execution at an early stage of the programming process. It could indicate that teaching needs to focus more on testing and debugging programs, which helps students understand programs better and find mistakes faster. The learners who struggle through the programming process should be guided to write programs incrementally, as this can also help find and correct syntax errors more quickly.
ISSN:2377-634X
DOI:10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343479