Browsing by Author "Henriques, Pedro Rangel"
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- C Tutor usage in relation to student achievement and progress: A study of introductory programming courses in Portugal and SerbiaPublication . Alves, Luís; Gajić, Dušan; Henriques, Pedro Rangel; Ivančević, Vladimir; Ivković, Vladimir; Lalić, Maksim; Luković, Ivan; Pereira, Maria João Varanda; Popov, Srđan; Tavares, Paula CorreiaPrevious research studies on introductory programming courses in engineering education in Portugal and Serbia have indicated that although high motivation and high expectations seem to be reported by students, many students may fail the course. This prompted a further inquiry into student attitudes, behavior, and achievement, and it also led to the introduction of C Tutor, a widely known program visualization tool, into courses in both countries. As a result, in the present study, self-reported student achievement (grades), self-reported student progress (knowledge improvement and confidence), and self-reported usage and helpfulness of C Tutor were investigated. Anonymous data about students and their experience in the course, which also included the usage of C Tutor, were collected in a survey in Portugal and Serbia. Quantitative methods, including descriptive statistics, clustering, statistical testing of independence, and partial correlation analysis, were applied in analyses of survey data. The distribution of grades differed between the two countries, but overall attitudes were similar. Various uncovered patterns involving student attitudes and usage of C Tutor may serve as a starting point for new research studies.
- Computer-supported Techniques to Increase Students Engagement in ProgrammingPublication . Tavares, Paula Correia; Henriques, Pedro Rangel; Gomes, ElsaOne of the main reasons that justify the student’s failure in (introductory) programming courses is the lack of motivation that impacts on the knowledge acquisition process, affecting learning results. As soon as students face the difficulties concerning the development of algorithms or the coding in a programming language, they give up and do not try harder to solve other problems; they think it is a demanding activity and feel frustrated. In this paper we describe in detail an experiment conducted to verify the effectiveness, in terms of the increase in motivation and in knowledge acquisition, of combining program Animation tools with the immediate feedback provided by Automatic Evaluations Systems.