Fabic Geela Venise Firmalo, Mitrovic Antonija, Neshatian Kourosh
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, 8041 New Zealand.
Res Pract Technol Enhanc Learn. 2018;13(1):23. doi: 10.1186/s41039-018-0092-x. Epub 2018 Dec 18.
Mobile devices are increasingly being utilized for learning due to their unique features including portability for providing ubiquitous experiences. In this paper, we present PyKinetic, a mobile tutor we developed for Python programming, aimed to serve as a supplement to traditional courses. The overarching goal of our work is to design coding activities that maximize learning. As we work towards our goal, we first focus on the learning effectiveness of the activities within PyKinetic, rather than evaluating the effectiveness of PyKinetic as a supplement resource for an introductory programming course. The version of PyKinetic (PyKinetic_DbgOut) used in the study contains five types of learning activities aimed at supporting debugging, code-tracing, and code writing skills. We evaluated PyKinetic in a controlled lab study with quantitative and qualitative results to address the following research questions: (R1) Is the combination of coding activities effective for learning programming? (R2) How do the activities affect the skills of students with lower prior knowledge (novices) compared to those who had higher prior knowledge (advanced)? (R3) How can we improve the usability of PyKinetic? Results revealed that PyKinetic_DbgOut was more beneficial for advanced students. Furthermore, we found how coding skills are interrelated differently for novices compared to advanced learners. Lastly, we acquired sufficient feedback from the participants to improve the tutor.
由于移动设备具有便携性等独特特性，能提供无处不在的体验，因此越来越多地被用于学习。在本文中，我们介绍了PyKinetic，这是我们为Python编程开发的一款移动辅导工具，旨在作为传统课程的补充。我们工作的总体目标是设计能最大化学习效果的编码活动。在朝着目标努力的过程中，我们首先关注PyKinetic内部活动的学习效果，而非评估PyKinetic作为入门编程课程补充资源的有效性。该研究中使用的PyKinetic版本（PyKinetic_DbgOut）包含五种类型的学习活动，旨在支持调试、代码追踪和代码编写技能。我们在一项受控实验室研究中对PyKinetic进行了评估，得出了定量和定性结果，以回答以下研究问题：（R1）编码活动的组合对编程学习是否有效？（R2）与先前知识较高的学生（进阶者）相比，这些活动对先前知识较低的学生（新手）的技能有何影响？（R3）我们如何提高PyKinetic的可用性？结果显示，PyKinetic_DbgOut对进阶学生更有益。此外，我们发现新手与进阶学习者的编码技能相互关联的方式有所不同。最后，我们从参与者那里获得了足够的反馈以改进该辅导工具。
