Guided Debugging Practices of Game Based Programming for Novice Programmers

Chiu, Chiung-Fang; Huang, Hsing-Yi

doi:10.7763/ijiet.2015.v5.527

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…For example, researchers have adopted the problem‐based learning strategy (Chang, Chung, & Chang, 2020), a structured‐resource issue‐quest approach (Hsu & Hwang, 2017), design thinking disposition (Tsai & Wang, 2020), or game‐based learning (Jantan & Aljunid, 2012) to support programming training, and have argued that integrating various teaching and learning strategies benefited learners' learning performance, and promoted their satisfaction, enjoyment and motivation in computer programming. Venigalla and Chimalakonda (2020) adopted learning strategies with debugging practice to train students' programming ability, and found that students' confidence in learning programming was promoted after they participated in the guided debugging practices in the programming course (Chiu & Huang, 2015).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating modified WebQuest activities for programming learning

Wang

2021

Computer Assisted Learning

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The study designed WebQuest activities and explored the learning performance of learners to understand the suitability of using WebQuest in a college programming course. The study modified the processes of WebQuest based on social constructivism and scaffolding learning, and included programming tasks such as debugging practice to encourage learners to develop their problem‐solving abilities. The WebQuest learning sheets include the following four parts, introduction, task, resources and evaluation, and the learners had to complete the tasks without the detailed processes. After they had tried to solve the problem for approximately two weeks, the detailed WebQuest processes were provided. A total of 109 learners (third year of college) participated in the study and were separated into two groups. The experimental group underwent WebQuest teaching, while the control group received the traditional IT‐integrated teaching. The study duration was 18 weeks (3 hr/week). The results indicated that the modified WebQuest activity gave learners scaffolding to do try‐and‐revise practice, and the processes of using provided possible information to test and debug the resulting codes encouraged them to associate and analyze learning information before programming and then to generalize the programming steps on their own instead of following the instructor's step‐by‐step instructions. The learners thus have a deep understanding of the programming concept rather than surface learning. The findings revealed that the modified WebQuest activity is a helpful form of scaffolding for promoting learners' positive learning experiences regarding organizing information and problem solving and reasoning skills. Besides, integrating debugging practice in the WebQuest activity could promote learners' intermediate and advance level programming ability. Subsequent research could further explore the effects of adding after‐practice WebQuest activities to assist and trigger learners' self‐reflection for refining their problem‐solving processes after the in‐class WebQuest activities.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating modified WebQuest activities for programming learning

Wang

2021

Computer Assisted Learning

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“…An interesting pedagogical question relates to how we may improve students' performance on debugging. Chiu and Huang (2015) put forward a scaffolding approach of guided debugging practices for novice programmers. Their study indicated that students' programming concepts improved significantly after engaging in guided debugging practices; however, little effect was detected on students' debugging self-efficacy.…”

Section: On Testing and Debuggingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interplay Between Mathematical and Computational Thinking in Primary School Students’ Mathematical Problem-Solving Within a Programming Environment

Cui

2021

Journal of Educational Computing Research

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In this paper, we explore the challenges experienced by a group of Primary 5 to 6 (age 12–14) students as they engaged in a series of problem-solving tasks through block-based programming. The challenges were analysed according to a taxonomy focusing on the presence of computational thinking (CT) elements in mathematics contexts: preparing problems, programming, create computational abstractions, as well as troubleshooting and debugging. Our results suggested that the challenges experienced by students were compounded by both having to learn the CT-based environment as well as to apply mathematical concepts and problem solving in that environment. Possible explanations for the observed challenges stemming from differences between CT and mathematical thinking are discussed in detail, along with suggestions towards improving the effectiveness of integrating CT into mathematics learning. This study provides evidence-based directions towards enriching mathematics education with computation.

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“…Users can debug the code snippets by identifying the point of error based on information provided, and also add checkpoints to the code (Luxton-Reilly et al, 2018). Chiu et al have observed that using games to debug effectively improves the programming concepts of students (Chiu & Huang, 2015). RoboBug game has been designed to support debugging of various programming languages.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Debugging comes with practice and hence novice programmers face difficulties in identifying the errors and fixing them (Gould, 1975;McCauley et al, 2008). Also, novice programmers take significantly more time in correcting the errors than professional developers as they lack the idea of strategies that could be used to debug (Chiu & Huang, 2015). Studies also report that good programming understanding doesn't always imply effective debugging skill and hence suggest emphasizing on debugging in programming courses (Ahmadzadeh, Elliman, & Higgins, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

G4D - a treasure hunt game for novice programmers to learn debugging

Venigalla

Chimalakonda

2020

Smart Learn. Environ.

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Visual Programming Environments (VPEs) are predominantly being used to teach programming concepts through interactive games with interesting narratives. Games have been developed to teach basic concepts of programming such as deriving logic, writing code, debugging the code and so on. Debugging code is one of the most important activities that can improve the skill of tackling a problem. In programming, one needs to identify the correct location of an error and fix it, which is usually learned through experience. Games have been developed to teach debugging to novice programmers. Syntactical errors occur frequently in the early stages of programming. The existing debugging games aim to support users in debugging the logic of the problem, but do not target on correcting the code snippets based on syntax. To address this challenge of providing syntactical support, we propose a treasure hunt based debugging game, in which users pass through various levels of the game by debugging code snippets written in C language. We have evaluated G4D based on MEEGA+ model, with 20 volunteers, having different programming backgrounds. The results of the user survey indicate that G4D has a good quality level and about 75% of the volunteers have either strongly agreed or agreed to recommend G4D to their colleagues.

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Guided Debugging Practices of Game Based Programming for Novice Programmers

Cited by 13 publications

References 14 publications

Integrating modified WebQuest activities for programming learning

Integrating modified WebQuest activities for programming learning

The Interplay Between Mathematical and Computational Thinking in Primary School Students’ Mathematical Problem-Solving Within a Programming Environment

G4D - a treasure hunt game for novice programmers to learn debugging

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