A presentation from the STEM Annual Conference 2014.
Academics have been investigating how first year undergraduates learn to program for decades aiming to ensure an equal learning outcome. Existing literature mainly discusses the teaching and learning on the basis of physical world activities and paper. However as the Web is changing the world it also changes students’ learning in this digital world. Therefore it may be helpful for academics to understand what students actually do especially how they use the Web to enhance their learning by gathering detailed perspectives from our undergraduates.
This study focuses on investigating learning practice of undergraduates who were taught how to program in an introductory programming module in the University of Southampton. A mixed methodology which combined quantitative and qualitative research methods was adopted for this study to gather evidence identifying what the student does when learning to program. Further questions address: a) what effect do a student’s background attitude and beliefs have on their subsequent approaches and practices b) how do students gain to lose motivation and modify their approaches to learning as they progress and c) how do they integrate their formal and informal learning activities. Meanwhile this research suggests a mixed methods research framework which can be useful for future further study.
