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Engaging students in active exploration of programming worked examples

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Abstract

Worked examples can help novice learners develop early schemata from an expert’s solution to a problem. Nonetheless, the worked examples themselves are no guarantee that students will explore these experts’ solutions effectively. This study explores two different approaches to supporting engineering technology students’ learning in an undergraduate introductory programming course: debugging and in-code commenting worked examples. In a Fall semester, students self-explained worked examples using in-code comments (n = 120), while in a Spring semester, students debugged worked examples (spring n = 101). Performance data included the midterm and final exams. Prior exposure to programming courses was taken from a survey at the beginning of each semester. Findings suggest that both the debugging and explaining forms of engagement with worked examples helped students with no prior programming experience to succeed in the course. For the worked examples to be effective, those need to be provided with some explicit form of engagement (i.e., debugging or self-explaining). Combining both strategies following explaining first and debugging second may result in a more effective approach.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation under the award number EEC 1826099. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Sebastian Garces & Guity Ravai

  2. Department of Education, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Camilo Vieira

  3. Department of Computer and Information Technology, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, 401 N. Grant Street, Knoy Hall of Technology, 47906, West Lafayette, IN, United States

    Alejandra J. Magana

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  1. Sebastian Garces
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  2. Camilo Vieira
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Correspondence to Alejandra J. Magana.

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Garces, S., Vieira, C., Ravai, G. et al. Engaging students in active exploration of programming worked examples. Educ Inf Technol 28, 2869–2886 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11247-6

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