Improving Instruction of Programming Patterns with Faded Parsons Problems

Weinman, Nathaniel; Fox, Armando; Hearst, Marti A.

doi:10.1145/3411764.3445228

Cited by 37 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…There has also been research that provides evidence that solving Parsons problems can help students learn common patterns [115]. However, again, that is from a single institution in a single country.…”

Section: Working Group Parsons Problem Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, they identified a need for large-scale, multi-institutional, multinational (MIMN) studies to strengthen the evidence for the benefits of Parsons problems. Furthermore, they identified a need for more research on newer variations of Parsons problems, such as adaptive Parsons [26,28] and faded Parsons [115]. Finally, most prior work investigated the utility of Parsons problems in a CS1 context using Python or Java, with little work teaching other languages or more advanced concepts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-Institutional Multi-National Studies of Parsons Problems

Ericson,

Pearce,

Rodger

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

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Section: Working Group Parsons Problem Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Institutional Multi-National Studies of Parsons Problems

Ericson,

Pearce,

Rodger

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

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“…They provided evidence that most students found solving Parsons problems useful for learning to program [6]. The growing research on Parsons problems has also provided evidence for several benefits from Parsons problems [2] including engagement [4], learning efficiency [3,10], and recalling programming patterns [9]. However, there is a clear need for replication studies and more multi-institutional studies since most of the research has been single institution studies of less than 500 participants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conducting Multi-Institutional Studies of Parsons Problems

Ericson

Pearce

Rodger

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education v. 2

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Many novice programmers struggle to write code from scratch and get frustrated when their code does not work. Parsons problems can reduce the difficulty of a coding problem by providing mixed-up blocks that the learner assembles in the correct order. Parsons problems can also include distractor blocks that are not needed in a correct solution, but which may help students learn to recognize and fix errors. Evidence indicates that students find Parsons problems engaging, easier than writing code from scratch, useful for learning patterns, and typically faster to solve than writing code from scratch with equivalent learning gains. This working group leverages the work of the 2022 ITiCSE working group which published an extensive literature review of Parsons problems and designed and piloted several studies based on the gaps identified by the literature review. The 2023 working group is revising, conducting, and creating new studies. We will analyze the data from these multi-institutional and multi-national studies and publish the results as well as recommendations for future working groups. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics → Computing education.

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“…Parsons problems that contains only the necessary blocks. Weinman et al (2021) found that students were able learn programming patterns by solving Parsons problems more effectively than by writing code.…”

Section: Shuffle Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Parsons problems have been shown to significantly reduce time without sacrificing performance (Zhi et al, 2018). Weinman et al (2021) tested different methods for improving students' ability to learn and apply programming patterns. There were three studies.…”

Section: Algorithmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Comparison Activities in a Programming Tutor

Keech

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Prior work has shown that novice programmers struggle with learning algorithms. Yet not much research has been conducted on improving algorithm instruction. Comparison of multiple solutions to the same problem has been used to improve learning gains in other fields. This thesis investigated whether comparison of multiple examples helps novice programmers learn. Two versions of a tutoring system were designed and implemented: one that presented pairs of examples and asked students to compare them, and another that presented examples sequentially.Both versions contained the same ten examples, as well as activities to encourage algorithm learning. Learning was assessed as the gain from pre-to post-test. Participants in both conditions learned from the tutors, but there was no significant difference between the two conditions.

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Improving Instruction of Programming Patterns with Faded Parsons Problems

Cited by 37 publications

References 37 publications

Multi-Institutional Multi-National Studies of Parsons Problems

Multi-Institutional Multi-National Studies of Parsons Problems

Conducting Multi-Institutional Studies of Parsons Problems

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Comparison Activities in a Programming Tutor

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