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Does language choice influence the effectiveness of online introductory programming courses?

Published: 02 October 2013 Publication History

Abstract

The growing introduction of online courses and degrees places high emphasis on the need for thorough assessment of these offerings. This paper focuses on researching a reliable answer to whether changing the programming language used in online introductory programming courses from C++ to Java will have an impact on their effectiveness or not. The paper uses four distinct data sets to measure course effectiveness and implements an experimental, in-depth analysis procedure to come up with an answer to the posed research question. The data collected from classes, using C++, constitute the control group while data collected when Java was used constitute the experimental group. The first set uses data collected from students that express their perception of the effectiveness of various online course parameters. The second set directly measures students' achievement of course outcomes and compares the measured levels across the studied groups. The third set compares a number of students' success and interactivity indicators while the last set measures the student satisfaction with the course and the instructor. The obtained results for all studied performance measures asserted that there were no statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups. Such findings can be deemed significant for IT-programs given the popularity of the studied languages and the fact that the study focused mainly on online offerings which are on the rise.

References

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  • (2021)The Old Question: Which Programming Language Should We Choose to Teach to Program?Advances in Digital Science10.1007/978-3-030-71782-7_31(351-364)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2021
  • (2020)Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, and Assessments for Introductory Programming CourseIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2020.30083218(125961-125981)Online publication date: 2020
  • (2020)The First Programming Language and Freshman Year in Computer Science: Characterization and Tips for Better Decision MakingTrends and Innovations in Information Systems and Technologies10.1007/978-3-030-45697-9_16(162-174)Online publication date: 18-May-2020
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGITE '13: Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education
    October 2013
    220 pages
    ISBN:9781450322393
    DOI:10.1145/2512276
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 02 October 2013

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    Author Tags

    1. evaluating student's perception and satisfaction
    2. measuring course learning outcomes
    3. online programming courses
    4. programming language choice

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    SIGITE/RIIT'13
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    SIGITE/RIIT'13: SIGITE/RIIT 2013
    October 10 - 12, 2013
    Florida, Orlando, USA

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    SIGITE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 70 submissions, 40%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 176 of 429 submissions, 41%

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    View all
    • (2021)The Old Question: Which Programming Language Should We Choose to Teach to Program?Advances in Digital Science10.1007/978-3-030-71782-7_31(351-364)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2021
    • (2020)Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, and Assessments for Introductory Programming CourseIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2020.30083218(125961-125981)Online publication date: 2020
    • (2020)The First Programming Language and Freshman Year in Computer Science: Characterization and Tips for Better Decision MakingTrends and Innovations in Information Systems and Technologies10.1007/978-3-030-45697-9_16(162-174)Online publication date: 18-May-2020
    • (2020)First Programming Language in Introductory Programming Courses, Role ofEncyclopedia of Education and Information Technologies10.1007/978-3-030-10576-1_217(759-768)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2020
    • (2018)Introductory programming: a systematic literature reviewProceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3293881.3295779(55-106)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2018
    • (2018)Students' perspective on the first programming languageEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-017-9601-623:1(287-302)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2018
    • (2017)Student perspectives on the use of a Java library for novices2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON.2017.7943031(1405-1410)Online publication date: Apr-2017
    • (2016)Can online delivery result in comparable achievement of course outcomes and student success in different computer science courses?2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2016.7757378(1-7)Online publication date: Oct-2016

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