G4D - a treasure hunt game for novice programmers to learn debugging

Abstract

Visual Programming Environments (VPEs) are predominantly being used to teach programming concepts through interactive games with interesting narratives. Games have been developed to teach basic concepts of programming such as deriving logic, writing code, debugging the code and so on. Debugging code is one of the most important activities that can improve the skill of tackling a problem. In programming, one needs to identify the correct location of an error and fix it, which is usually learned through experience. Games have been developed to teach debugging to novice programmers. Syntactical errors occur frequently in the early stages of programming. The existing debugging games aim to support users in debugging the logic of the problem, but do not target on correcting the code snippets based on syntax. To address this challenge of providing syntactical support, we propose a treasure hunt based debugging game, in which users pass through various levels of the game by debugging code snippets written in C language. We have evaluated G4D based on MEEGA+ model, with 20 volunteers, having different programming backgrounds. The results of the user survey indicate that G4D has a good quality level and about 75% of the volunteers have either strongly agreed or agreed to recommend G4D to their colleagues.

Integrating modified WebQuest activities for programming learning

“…For example, researchers have adopted the problem‐based learning strategy (Chang, Chung, & Chang, 2020), a structured‐resource issue‐quest approach (Hsu & Hwang, 2017), design thinking disposition (Tsai & Wang, 2020), or game‐based learning (Jantan & Aljunid, 2012) to support programming training, and have argued that integrating various teaching and learning strategies benefited learners' learning performance, and promoted their satisfaction, enjoyment and motivation in computer programming. Venigalla and Chimalakonda (2020) adopted learning strategies with debugging practice to train students' programming ability, and found that students' confidence in learning programming was promoted after they participated in the guided debugging practices in the programming course (Chiu & Huang, 2015).…”

A Think-Aloud Study of Novice Debugging

“…They found that the game environment was most effective at teaching debugging for students with little previous experience, but some students found the environment frustrating. More recently, Venigalla and Chimalakonda [89] developed G4D, a debugging game in which students debug C code to control a character searching for treasure. Although students were positive about the tool, the impact on debugging was not measured.…”

Beneficios de la programación por bloques utilizando Sphero mini mediante aprendizaje móvil en la educación superior

“…Con el aumento de las tasas de aceptación de los entornos de enseñanza y aprendizaje en línea, se están desarrollando varias herramientas para enseñar a programar y hacer que el aprendizaje sea interactivo, creativo, e interesante, utilizando diversas tecnologías, como la realidad mixta, la inteligencia artificial, etc. (Venigalla y Chimalakonda, 2020). Sin embargo, para preparar a nuestros jóvenes para enfrentarse al mundo en el que les tocará vivir, necesitamos un cuarto bloque que podríamos etiquetar como lenguaje Revista e-Ciencias de la Información revista.ebci@ucr.ac.cr | http://revistaebci.ucr.ac.cr | ISSN 1659-4142 6 digital, que incorporaría las competencias necesarias para desenvolverse con éxito en el mundo digital, con la programación como forma de resolver problemas y el pensamiento computacional como paradigma de trabajo (Llorens, 2015).…”