How do early programmers benefit from SPOC blended teaching: a data-driven analysis

This study conducts a data-driven statistic analysis for comparatively examining early programmers' academic performance and learning behavior between a SPOC blended teaching class and a traditional teaching class in an introductory C programming course. Teaching activities in the experimental class are implemented by a SPOC blended supporting tool -"rainy class", while the control group implements traditional classroom teaching. Both the two groups are required to complete assigned labs in the automatic assessment system-the online judge, and log data in terms of students' learning procedure is collected. Group analysis is employed to verify whether the two group differ in academic performance and learning behavior. The results show significant difference between the two groups on certain indicators. The findings confirm that the middle-lower programming foundation students in SPOC blended teaching class are positively regarding better academic performance, learning efforts and are able to obtain good achievements during the tests. Then, correlation analysis is conducted in the SPOC blended learning group to explore the impact of the performance in "rainy classroom" on students' academic performance and learning behavior. Conclusions show that effective "rainy classroom" engagement is positively correlated to students' final examination score and meanwhile promotes early programmers' performance in the overall online learning process.