RecurTutor: An Interactive Tutorial for Learning Recursion
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| Title: | RecurTutor: An Interactive Tutorial for Learning Recursion |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Hamouda, Sally, Edwards, Stephen H., Elmongui, Hicham G., Ernst, Jeremy V., Shaffer, Clifford A. |
| Source: | ACM Transactions on Computing Education. Jan 2019 19(1). |
| Availability: | Association for Computing Machinery. 2 Penn Plaza Suite 701, New York, NY 10121. Tel: 800-342-6626; Tel: 212-626-0500; Fax: 212-944-1318; e-mail: acmhelp@acm.org; Web site: http://toce.acm.org/ |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 24 |
| Publication Date: | 2019 |
| Contract Number: | DUE1139861 IIS1258571 DUE1432008 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Higher Education Postsecondary Education |
| Descriptors: | Computer Science Education, Programming, Instructional Effectiveness, Difficulty Level, Misconceptions, Self Efficacy, College Students, Performance Factors, Drills (Practice), Open Educational Resources, Textbook Content, Programmed Tutoring |
| Geographic Terms: | Virginia |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3218328 |
| ISSN: | 1946-6226 |
| Abstract: | Recursion is one of the most important and hardest topics in lower division computer science courses. As it is an advanced programming skill, the best way to learn it is through targeted practice exercises. But the best practice problems are time consuming to manually grade by an instructor. As a consequence, students historically have completed only a small number of recursion programming exercises as part of their coursework. We present a new way for teaching such programming skills. Students view examples and visualizations, then practice a wide variety of automatically assessed, small-scale programming exercises that address the sub-skills required to learn recursion. The basic recursion tutorial (RecurTutor) teaches material typically encountered in CS2 courses. Students who used RecurTutor had significantly better grades on recursion exam questions than did students who used typical instruction. Students who experienced RecurTutor spent significantly more time on solving recursive programming exercises than students who experienced typical instruction, and came out with a significantly higher confidence level. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2020 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1252356 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Recursion is one of the most important and hardest topics in lower division computer science courses. As it is an advanced programming skill, the best way to learn it is through targeted practice exercises. But the best practice problems are time consuming to manually grade by an instructor. As a consequence, students historically have completed only a small number of recursion programming exercises as part of their coursework. We present a new way for teaching such programming skills. Students view examples and visualizations, then practice a wide variety of automatically assessed, small-scale programming exercises that address the sub-skills required to learn recursion. The basic recursion tutorial (RecurTutor) teaches material typically encountered in CS2 courses. Students who used RecurTutor had significantly better grades on recursion exam questions than did students who used typical instruction. Students who experienced RecurTutor spent significantly more time on solving recursive programming exercises than students who experienced typical instruction, and came out with a significantly higher confidence level. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1946-6226 |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3218328 |
