Abstract
In programming education, the instructor tries to find out the learner who needs help by grasping the understanding using a written test and e-learning. However, in reality, not many learners will acquire the skill of writing source codes. This kind of current situation implies that programming ability of learners cannot be measured by tests that require knowledge. This paper focuses on not only the knowledge items required for programming but also the programming thinking (computational thinking), which is the ability to combine the constituent elements of the program. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate the learner’s understanding from the learner’s process to solve the code puzzles that require programming thinking as well as knowledge. The experimental result with the interface showed that the proposed method could estimate with the accuracy of 80% or more. The accurate measurement of the learner’s programming ability contributes to developing the learner’s true programming ability, which cannot measured by only the score of written tests. In addition, the importance of each variable in the behavior analysis leads to the identification of learner’s misunderstanding factors and the improvement of class contents. This study shows that it is possible to estimate the comprehension level of a programming thinking ability from only behavior of code puzzle, without sensors. The ability of learners to actually write programs is more important than their grades. This research can be developed to help develop the Information Technology talent we need in this era.
This work was not supported by any organization.
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Ito, H., Shimakawa, H., Harada, F. (2021). Advanced Comprehension Analysis Using Code Puzzle. In: Ziemba, E., Chmielarz, W. (eds) Information Technology for Management: Towards Business Excellence. ISM FedCSIS-IST 2020 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 413. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71846-6_3
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