The Impact of Lecture Attendance on Exams for Novice Programming Students

Abstract

Abstract-In this paper, the correlation between lecture attendance and assessment tasks on final exam performance of introductory programming students has been analyzed to identify if lecture attendance, and completion of in-class and take home formative assessment tasks affects student performance in the final examination. In this study, only lecture attendance, homework exercises and class demonstration scores, and final exam marks have been considered. This study used Spearman's Rank correlation coefficient and multiple regression techniques via SPSS software to analyze the student data of the academic years 2012, 2013 and 2014 of an introductory programming course to test the hypotheses. It is found that, there is a significant correlation between homework exercises and final exam scores. However, formal lecture attendance and final exam performance were negatively correlated. Moreover, multiple regression results of assessment tasks such as homework exercises, class activities and lecture attendance on final exam scores, did not provide any significant value to support the statement "Marks achieved in homework, class demonstrations, and lecture attendance, have a significant positive impact on final examination results".

Relationship between perceived problem‐solving skills and academic performance of novice learners in introductory programming courses

“…However, students who complete the DE exercises are instructed to enter their solutions into ViLLE via the instructor's computer for subsequent marking. The marks for DEs are calculated by ViLLE on the basis of their registered responses in the lecturer's computer (Veerasamy et al, ). Both HE and DE are hurdles, and students should secure at least 50% in each category to be eligible to sit FE.…”

Does Education Culture Influence Factors in Learning Programming: A Comparative Study between Two Universities across Continents

“…On the contrary, the study conducted by (Credé, et al, 2010) concluded that class attendance is a generally desirable behaviour, and there is encouraging evidence that mandatory policies are not necessary for dramatically improving class attendance or class performance. Another study conducted by (Veerasamy et al, 2016) concluded that attendance doesn't positively correlate with students' performance in the exams. Since attendance is compulsory at Indian University, further study needs to be conducted to understand why attendance proves to be ineffective towards student marks.…”

Integration of Assessment and Learning Platform in a Traditional Class Room Based Programming Course

“…However, study shows that there are no concrete valuable predictor to predict the student performance as they are varied from one context to another context in variety of ways ,including cultural settings and students cohort. Several studies have been conducted on the impact of problem solving skill on student performance in various courses including the programming reported that students with problem solving skill may help academicians to identify and analyze student study habits and attitudes that are important to academic performance though it is theoretically unrelated to academic achievements (Veerasamy et al 2016)(Bubica and Boljat 2014). Similarly, the author reported there is a strong that there is a strong relationship between problem solving proficiency of sophomore mathematic students in a quantitative technology and their achievements in that course.…”

“…Similarly, the author reported there is a strong that there is a strong relationship between problem solving proficiency of sophomore mathematic students in a quantitative technology and their achievements in that course. In addition, several studies reported that gender differences does not have any impact on the learning outcome of the programming courses (Veerasamy et al 2016)(Bubica and Boljat 2014). Specifically our independent sample t tests results confirmed that there is no gender discrimination in related to their performance in introductory course by adopting the problem based leaning.…”