Teaching basic programming to pre-university students through blended learning pedagogy: A descriptive study

• Main Authors: RAMACHANDRA RAO, Vandana, HENG, Ngee Mok
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: introductory programming course; blended learning pedagogy; university education choice; computer science studies; open educational resource; student outreach; Asian Studies; Computer Sciences; Education; Programming Languages and Compilers
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/5948; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/6951/viewcontent/ISATE_paper_Final.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Students enrolling for undergraduate programmes in Singapore would have either finished their polytechnic diploma or completed Junior College (JC) studies. Most pre-university students coming through the JC pathway are not exposed to programming as computing is offered as a subject in a very few JCs. The authors of this paper conducted four runs of an introductory programing course between 2016 and 2017 for a research project funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore. The project named “Let’s Code!” was intended to introduce fundamental programming concepts to students and guide them to consider taking a computer-science related degree for their university education. Preuniversity students who had no background in programming could enrol in one of the runs of the “Let’s Code!” programming course. Blended learning pedagogy was adopted to deliver the course content in three weeks. The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the delivery of an introductory programming course to a heterogeneous group of preuniversity students through a blended learning pedagogy. This paper analyses the survey responses and the test scores of the participants who attended the course in the two runs of June and December 2017. Based on the test scores taken on the final day of the course, it was found that (i) male students performed better than the female students regardless of whether they had prior programming exposure, and (ii) students who had exposure to programming performed better than those with no prior background. Keywords: introductory programming course, blended learning pedagogy, university education choice, computer science studies, open educational resource, student outreach. Introduction Students applying for undergraduate university admissions in Singapore primarily come from two streams. They are either (i) students with a polytechnic diploma or (ii) students who had exposure to programming performed better than those with no prior background.