An Analysis of Common Errors Leading to Excessive Student Struggle on Homework Problems in an Introductory Programming Course
- Conference
- Location
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Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2018
- Start Date
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June 23, 2018
- End Date
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July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Computers in Education
- Page Count
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13
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--29771
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/29771
- Download Count
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631
Paper Authors
Nabeel Alzahrani University of California, Riverside
Nabeel Alzahrani is a computer science PhD student at the University of California, Riverside. Nabeel's research interests include causes of student struggle, and debugging methodologies, in introductory computer programming courses.
Frank Vahid University of California, Riverside
Frank Vahid is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Univ. of California, Riverside. His research interests include embedded systems design, and engineering education. He is a co-founder of zyBooks.com.
Alex Daniel Edgcomb zyBooks
Alex Edgcomb finished his PhD in computer science at UC Riverside in 2014. Alex works in research and development at zyBooks.com, a startup that develops interactive, web-native textbooks in STEM. Alex has also continued working as a research specialist at UC Riverside, studying the efficacy of web-native content for STEM education.
Roman Lysecky University of Arizona
Roman Lysecky is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 2005. His research interests include embedded systems, runtime optimization, non-intrusive system observation methods, data-adaptable systems, and embedded system security. He has recently coauthored multiple textbooks, published by zyBooks, that utilize a web-native, interactive, and animated approach, which has been shown to increase student learning and achievements.
Susan Lysecky zyBooks
Susan received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 2006. She served as a faculty member at the University of Arizona from 2006-2014. She has a background in design automation and optimization for embedded systems, as well as experience in the development of accessible engineering curricula and learning technologies. She is currently the Director of Content at zyBooks, a startup that develops highly-interactive, web-native textbooks for a variety of STEM disciplines.
Abstract
Students make many errors in an introductory programming course (aka CS 1). While previous research reports common errors, some errors are normal, being corrected by students in a reasonable amount of time, and being part of the learning process. However, some errors may lead to frustration due to excessive struggle, which may lead to student attrition. We defined a struggle metric using a combination of excessive time spent and excessive attempts, relative to other students in a course and reasonable thresholds. We analyzed struggle on 78 short, auto-graded coding homework problems for an 80-student Spring 2017 introductory C++ programming course at a research university. We found the struggle rate to be 10-15%. Our main focus was to determine the errors that led to such struggle, and thus we manually examined the student submissions for the 10 homework problems having the highest struggle rates. We described the errors and potential underlying student misconceptions that seemed to lead to that struggle. We found that most common errors belong to the following: nested loops, else-if vs. multiple if, random range, input/output, for loop and vector, for loop and if, vector index, negated loop expression, and boolean expressions. Having a deeper understanding of these common errors may aid teachers and authors to help students avoid or correct such errors, thus reducing struggle, which may reduce frustration and potential attrition.
Alzahrani, N., & Vahid, F., & Edgcomb, A. D., & Lysecky, R., & Lysecky, S. (2018, June), An Analysis of Common Errors Leading to Excessive Student Struggle on Homework Problems in an Introductory Programming Course Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29771
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