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Robert Hatch
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise
One College Ave.
Wise, VA 24293
rjh7g@mcs.uvawise.edu
The same five qualitative questions were posed to students 4.3 Comparing School Years 10-11 and 12-13
that were asked in the Fall 2012 semester. A variety of Table 3 shows the final letter grade students earned over
responses addressed changing the lab. For example: one the course of the semester. This table includes students
positive comment said, “In general, it allowed for more con- who completed the course; it omits students with excessive
cepts to be openly discussed instead of reviewing the same absences or those students who stopped showing up closer
general project 3 or 4 times.” Another student appreciated to the end of the semester. The data suggest there might be
having more group programs than code reviews. A third benefits from revamping the course because students appear
student said that “the code reviews ’wasted’ time that we to be making higher grades. Student performance is shown
could have used to practice more problems.” Generally, more in Table 4. The figures show significant improvement in
group programming activities were suggested because code exam averages and final exam averages with changes to the
reviews were not helpful. course. Since changes have been made to exams and finals
themselves, numbers in Table 5 list correct percentage for
With respect to the second question (code reviews v. code each of the common areas of the exams (short answer, short
activities), only two students favored code reviews; a third coding, tracing, and long coding). As Table 5 notes, there
students seem to find working in groups beneficial to their
Table 3: Final Grade Distribution - 10-11 and 12-13 understanding. They respond more positively to group cod-
Semester Students As Bs Cs Ds Fs
ing as opposed to the code reviews completed in groups.
Fall 2010 25 3 3 11 3 5
More group coding exercises may be introduced in future
Spring 2011 19 1 3 3 5 7 course offerings, but code reviews will not be completely
Fall 2012 24 4 4 6 5 5 eliminated from lab activities. The department feels that it
Spring 2013 17 5 1 5 4 2 remains important for students to see other ways of thinking
and understand there often is more than one way to reach a
solution.
Table 4: Performance - Exams and Assignments
Semester Exams Assignments Final Exam
Fall 2010 57.19 72.83 44.04
6. REFERENCES
[1] T. Beaubouef and J. Mason. Why the high attrition
Spring 2011 51.25 68.14 44.32
rate for computer science students: some thoughts and
Fall 2012 68.66 77.38 68.02 observations. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 37(2):103–106,
Spring 2013 68.76 70.65 64.68 June 2005.
[2] D. Brown. Cs 1 labs: goals and expectations. ACM
SIGCSE Bulletin, 24(4):29–34, December 1992.
are some improvements seen in performance on the common
[3] F. Ford, L. King, L. Kovijanic, A. Kumar, M. D.
areas of the exams. Tracing remains an issue to students.
LeBlanc, and L. Wilkens. The effectiveness of
The long coding segment is also lower, in spite of the fact
structured labs in cs1. Journal of Computing Sciences
that this portion of the exam is open-book, open-note. Part
in Colleges, 17(6):6–9, May 2002.
of the problem with these two areas may lie in the fact that
[4] C. Hundhausen, A. Agrawal, D. Fairbrother, and
students feel rushed for time when getting to these last two
M. Trevisan. Integrating pedagogical code reviews into
sections.
a cs 1 course: an empirical study. ACM SIGCSE
Bulletin, 41(1):291–295, March 2009.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK [5] P. Kinnunen and L. Malmi. Cs minors in a cs1 course.
Our department introduced the use of a lab to accompany In Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop
our CS1 course as well as other changes to help students with on Computing Education Research, pages 79–90.
the course material. The lab consisted of students review- ACM, September 2008.
ing one another’s code in groups, as well as group coding [6] P. Lassere and C. Szostak. Effects of team-based
activities. The students critiqued each other’s impact on learning on a cs1 course. In Proceedings of the 16th
helpfulness and their active participation in a group setting. annual joint conference on Innovation and technology
Other changes included daily homework assignments, which in computer science education, pages 133–137. ACM,
were collected the following class period. Quizzes between June 2011.
exams were added as a diagnostic to show a student’s com- [7] N. LeJeune. Critical components for successful
prehension of topics. The exams also were altered to allow collaborative learning in cs1. Journal of Computing
students an opportunity to complete a traditional “long cod- Sciences in Colleges, 19(1):275–285, October 2003.
ing problem” in the form of a practical question. [8] R. McCauley, C. Starr, W. Pharr, R. Stalvey, and
G. Pothering. Is cs1 better with the same lecture and
The data on final grades, as well as exams, show some lab instructor. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 38(2):54–60,
improvement related to grades earned. Students still feel June 2006.
rushed for time when they must complete both a written
[9] N. H. Narayanan, C. Hundhausen, D. Hendrix, and
portion and the practical portion of exams. This rush for
M. Crosby. Transforming the cs classroom with
time may contribute to poor scores in the tracing and long
studio-based learning. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM
coding components of exams. Perhaps some homework could
technical symposium on Computer Science Education,
be geared toward more frequent tracing practice between ex-
pages 165–166. ACM, March 2012.
ams as well.
[10] E. A. Patitsas and S. A. Wolfman. Effective closed
Another year of study is required to see what further changes labs in early cs courses: lessons from eight terms of
might be needed to maximize help provided to students so action research. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM
that they can understand the material. The idea of mov- technical symposium on Computer Science Education,
ing exams to a lab period might be feasible, as long as all pages 637–642. ACM, March 2012.
students can show up for the same lab block. In our lab, [11] L.-K. Soh, A. Samal, S. Person, G. Nugent, and
J. Lang. Analyzing relationships between closed labs
and course activities in cs1. In Proceedings of the 10th
annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and
Table 5: Exam Sections - Performance technology in computer science education, pages
Exams Short Short Tracing Long 183–187. ACM, June 2005.
Answer Coding Coding [12] G. N. Walker. Experimentation in the computer
Fall 2010 54.43% 61.56% 44.76% 55.97% programming lab. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin,
Spring 2011 61.85% 64.02% 41.07% 49.01% 36(4):69–72, December 2004.
Fall 2012 71.79% 67.11% 50.3% 63.34%
Spring 2013 74.48% 70.44% 55.88% 64.6%
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