Academic Help Seeking Patterns in Introductory Computer Science Courses

Lina Battestilli; Matthew Zahn; Sarah Heckman

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Computers in Education 4 - Online and Distributed Learning I
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41526
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41526
Download Count: 641

Paper Authors

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Lina Battestilli North Carolina State University at Raleigh

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Dr. Lina Battestilli is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University(NCSU). Her Ph.D. dissertation in Computer Science from NCSU in 2005 and her industry experience at IBM Research were focused on novel networking technologies, cloud computing and performance evaluation. Since 2012, her research interests are in computer science education with a focus of broadening participation in computing. She teaches introductory computer science courses, networking electives and the Computer Science Capstone Course. She is a Program Chair for ACM’s SIGCSE TS 2023-2024, and member of the Academic Committee of the Grace Hopper Celebration 2020-22. Dr. Battestilli is the Faculty Advisor for NCSU’s ACM-W student chapter, 2020/2021 NCSU DELTA Faculty Fellow and 2021/2023 Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellow, NCSU Equity for Women Award Nominee 2020 and Invited Member to NCSU's COVID Instruction and Student Support Task Force.

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Matthew Zahn North Carolina State University at Raleigh

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Matthew Zahn is a PhD student in Computer Science at North Carolina State University. He received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science at NC State in 2021. He has worked as a Peer Teaching Fellow for the Computer Science department's Software Fundamentals course since 2019. His research interests include computer-based education, game development, and software engineering.

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Sarah Heckman North Carolina State University at Raleigh

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Abstract

This paper explores the utilization of help-seeking resources in two computer science courses across two semesters: a CS1-Eng Introduction to Computing (Engineering majors, n=326) and a CS2-OOP Object Oriented Programming (Computer Science majors n=238). Asking, receiving and processing academic help is considered an important self-regulated learning skill. The help-seeking interactions faculty encounter will vary depending upon the course structure and the student demographics. Our goal in this study is to explore differences to determine whether or not patterns exist in how students are seeking help.

The process of learning for mastery extends beyond the classroom. Typically, students are first exposed to the course material via lectures (live or recorded) and they process the materials by completing assignments. When students have questions about the course material, their learning continues when they seek academic help. In higher education, students most commonly ask for help via two ways: 1) office hours when the students synchronously interact with the course teaching staff (in-person or virtually) and 2) online discussion forums for asynchronous help.

Some students take full advantage of the academic help provided in a course, while others do not see any academic help. Students’ help-seeking strategies have been linked to their cognitive engagement, course-related anxiety and academic performance. The objective of this research is to describe the academic help-seeking behavior in early Computer Science. Our goal is to improve the success rates of students taking these courses by connecting them to the academic help-seeking resources available in the class.

We collected data about the help-seeking habits of students in the two courses CS1-Eng and CS2-OOP in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 at a large public, research-intensive, university in the United States. Students had the option to receive help asynchronously through the use of a Piazza online discussion forum or by going to Office hours (held via video conferencing in Zoom and managed with the MyDigitalHand (MDH) tool). MDH is a web-based tool which creates a queue and tracks one-on-one help Interactions. Using the help-seeking metrics from Piazza and MDH, we grouped the students based on their usage of an online discussion forum and their frequency of attending office hours into the following six groups: Online Forum Groups ( Non-Users, Lurkers, Contributors) and Office Hours Groups (Non-Goers, Goers and Super-Goers.)

Next, we describe these six help-seeking groups using course grades, prior programming experience and the students’ confidence in their computing skills (the last two metrics were acquired via a beginning of semester survey). Our results match expectations with help-seeking; students who participate on the course discussion forum tend to perform better than students who do not and students with low confidence in computer science skills in the CS2-OOP class attend office hours more frequently. Practitioners can utilize our findings to make decisions about how to structure the help provided in their courses and determine ways to support students that may need more help.

Citation
Format

Battestilli, L., & Zahn, M., & Heckman, S. (2022, August), Academic Help Seeking Patterns in Introductory Computer Science Courses Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41526

TY - CPAPER
AB - This paper explores the utilization of help-seeking resources in two computer science courses across two semesters: a CS1-Eng Introduction to Computing (Engineering majors, n=326) and a CS2-OOP Object Oriented Programming (Computer Science majors n=238). Asking, receiving and processing academic help is considered an important self-regulated learning skill. The help-seeking interactions faculty encounter will vary depending upon the course structure and the student demographics. Our goal in this study is to explore differences to determine whether or not patterns exist in how students are seeking help.

The process of learning for mastery extends beyond the classroom. Typically, students are first exposed to the course material via lectures (live or recorded) and they process the materials by completing assignments. When students have questions about the course material, their learning continues when they seek academic help. In higher education, students most commonly ask for help via two ways: 1) office hours when the students synchronously interact with the course teaching staff (in-person or virtually) and 2) online discussion forums for asynchronous help.

Some students take full advantage of the academic help provided in a course, while others do not see any academic help. Students’ help-seeking strategies have been linked to their cognitive engagement, course-related anxiety and academic performance. The objective of this research is to describe the academic help-seeking behavior in early Computer Science. Our goal is to improve the success rates of students taking these courses by connecting them to the academic help-seeking resources available in the class.

We collected data about the help-seeking habits of students in the two courses CS1-Eng and CS2-OOP in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 at a large public, research-intensive, university in the United States. Students had the option to receive help asynchronously through the use of a Piazza online discussion forum or by going to Office hours (held via video conferencing in Zoom and managed with the MyDigitalHand (MDH) tool). MDH is a web-based tool which creates a queue and tracks one-on-one help Interactions. Using the help-seeking metrics from Piazza and MDH, we grouped the students based on their usage of an online discussion forum and their frequency of attending office hours into the following six groups: Online Forum Groups ( Non-Users, Lurkers, Contributors) and Office Hours Groups (Non-Goers, Goers and Super-Goers.)

Next, we describe these six help-seeking groups using course grades, prior programming experience and the students’ confidence in their computing skills (the last two metrics were acquired via a beginning of semester survey). Our results match expectations with help-seeking; students who participate on the course discussion forum tend to perform better than students who do not and students with low confidence in computer science skills in the CS2-OOP class attend office hours more frequently. Practitioners can utilize our findings to make decisions about how to structure the help provided in their courses and determine ways to support students that may need more help.
AU - Lina Battestilli
AU - Matthew Zahn
AU - Sarah Heckman
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Academic Help Seeking Patterns in Introductory Computer Science Courses
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41526
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41526
ER -