Analysis of student behaviors in programming exercises in controlled and natural environments

• Main Authors: Tiam-Lee, Thomas James Z., Sumi, Kaoru
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Computer programming—Problems, exercises, etc.; Students—Psychology; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/13072
• Institution: De La Salle University

We performed an analysis of the behaviors of novice students while solving programming exercises from data collected in two environments: a controlled laboratory setup and an online system that could be used freely in the wild. We modeled student behavior from raw action sequences using hidden Markov models to capture the sequential information of the problem-solving process. We found similar sequential structures between the two environments, with students generally starting from being idle, followed by writing of the code, followed by testing and submission, which may then transition back to an idle state if not successful. While the models were similar, we found evidences of less persistence in solving the problems on students using the online system compared to those in the controlled setup.