Background
Programming a computer is an increasingly valuable skill, but dropout and failure rates in introductory programming courses are regularly as high as 50%. Like many fields, programming requires students to learn complex problem-solving procedures from instructors who tend to have tacit knowledge about low-level procedures that they have automatized. The subgoal learning framework has been used in programming and other fields to breakdown procedural problem solving into smaller pieces that novices can grasp more easily, but it has only been used in short-term interventions. In this study, the subgoal learning framework was implemented throughout a semester-long introductory programming course to explore its longitudinal effects. Of 265 students in multiple sections of the course, half received subgoal-oriented instruction while the other half received typical instruction.

Results
Learning subgoals consistently improved performance on quizzes, which were formative and given within a week of learning a new procedure, but not on exams, which were summative. While exam performance was not statistically better, the subgoal group had lower variance in exam scores and fewer students dropped or failed the course than in the control group. To better understand the learning process, we examined students’ responses to open-ended questions that asked them to explain the problem-solving process. Furthermore, we explored characteristics of learners to determine how subgoal learning affected students at risk of dropout or failure.

Conclusions
Students in an introductory programming course performed better on initial assessments when they received instructions that used our intervention, subgoal labels. Though the students did not perform better than the control group on exams on average, they were less likely to get failing grades or to drop the course. Overall, subgoal labels seemed especially effective for students who might otherwise struggle to pass or complete the course.



中文翻译：

---

带有子目标的实际示例降低了入门编程中的退出和失败率

背景
对计算机进行编程是一项越来越有价值的技能，但是入门编程课程中的辍学率和失败率通常高达50％。像许多领域一样，程序设计要求学生从倾向于对自己自动化的低级程序有默契知识的讲师那里学习复杂的问题解决程序。次目标学习框架已在编程和其他领域中使用，可以将过程问题的解决分解为较小的部分，新手可以更轻松地掌握它们，但它仅用于短期干预中。在本研究中，整个目标学期的入门编程课程均实施了次目标学习框架，以探讨其纵向影响。在该课程多个部分的265名学生中，

结果
学习子目标持续改善形成测试的测验的性能，这些测验是在学习新程序后一周内进行的，但不是测验，后者是总结性的。尽管考试成绩在统计学上并不好，但与对照组相比，次目标组的考试成绩方差更低，辍学或不及格的学生人数也更少。为了更好地理解学习过程，我们检查了学生对开放式问题的回答，这些问题要求他们解释解决问题的过程。此外，我们探索了学习者的特征，以确定次目标学习如何影响有辍学或失败风险的学生。

结论
入门编程课程的学生收到使用我们的干预措施和次级目标标签的说明时，在初步评估中表现更好。尽管学生的平均考试成绩并不比对照组好，但他们的成绩不及格或辍学的可能性较小。总体而言，亚目标标签似乎对否则可能难以通过或完成课程的学生特别有效。