Effects of Peer Tutoring and Attitude on Academic Performance of First Year Introductory Programming Students

Abstract

Previous research has estimated failure rates in introductory programming courses to be as high as 50% in universities around the world. These high incidences of failure have also led to negative attitudes towards programming. This paper takes a look at the Introduction to Programming course offered at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Pre-and post test programming scores were used to measure academic performance, while a survey derived from a modified Fennema-Sherman mathematics attitudes scale was used to measure student attitude towards programming. Three sub-categories were used for the measurement of attitudes, namely, personal confidence in learning programming, usefulness of programming and the perception of teacher motivation. Results indicate little evidence of a positive effect of peer tutoring on the academic performance of students. It also reveals that attitude, and in particular, confidence in learning programming, plays an important role in students' academic performance. This paper discusses the design of the study and analyzes the results gathered.Index Terms -attitude to programming, introductory programming, peer tutoring.

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

“…A study investigating the effects of peer tutoring on student confidence, attitude, and performance found no significant differences between students engaged in peer tutoring and those experiencing standard delivery of material [200]. Another study using the supplemental instruction (SI) approach, in which 'model' students guide additional learning sessions for their peers, reported no improvement in student performance [700].…”

Learning-by-Teaching in CS Education: A Systematic Review

“…In regards to research methodology, as shown in Figure 3, four out of the nine papers selected adopted the quasi-experimental design for quantitative research [25,26,27,28]. In these studies, one class was assigned to be the experimental group using peertutoring or peer tutoring for teaching, while another class was used as the control group.…”

Undergraduate Students’ Failure in Programming Courses in Institutions of Higher Education in Developing Countries: A Nigerian Perspective

“…Other factors that affect the success of learning programming by students include personal confidence, perception of teacher motivation and usefulness of programming. Facey-Shaw & Golding (2005) found personal confidence in learning programming contributed more significantly than the usefulness of programming and the perception of teacher motivation.…”

“…Revealing the causes of introductory programming courses using qualitative data is a significant research contribution (Hawi, 2009). That is, in other studies, quantitative data collection using surveys have usually dominated the mainstream IS research to understand the causes of programming failures (Sarpong et al, 2013) or presented with a with hypothetical scenarios where subjects are asked to mention the various causes of their learning outcomes (Wiedenbeck et al, 2004;Facey-Shaw & Golding, 2005).…”