Informatics in Education

There can be many reasons why students fail to answer correctly to summative tests in advanced computer science courses: often the cause is a lack of prerequisites or misconceptions about topics presented in previous courses. One of the ITiCSE 2020 working groups investigated the possibility of designing assessments suitable for differentiating between fragilities in prerequisites (in particular, knowledge and skills related to introductory programming courses) and advanced topics. This paper reports on an empirical evaluation of an instrument focusing on data structures, among those proposed by the ITiCSE working group. The evaluation aimed at understanding what fragile knowledge and skills the instrument is actually able to detect and to what extent it is able to differentiate them. Our results support that the instrument is able to distinguish between some specific fragilities (e.g., value vs. reference semantics), but not all of those claimed in the original report. In addition, our findings highlight the role of relevant skills at a level between prerequisite and advanced skills, such as program comprehension and reasoning about constraints. We also suggest ways to improve the questions in the instrument, both by improving the distractors of the multiple choice questions, and by slightly changing the content or phrasing of the questions. We argue that these improvements will increase the effectiveness of the instrument in assessing prerequisites as a whole, but also to pinpoint specific fragilities.

This paper presents an educational setting that attempts to enhance students’ understanding and facilitate students’ linking-inferencing skills. The proposed setting is structured in three stages. The first stage intends to explore students’ prior knowledge. The second stage aims to help students tackle their difficulties and misconceptions and deepen their understanding of the topics under study. This is attempted through individual student engagement in suitably-designed activities and relative feedback. As recorded in previous research, students’ difficulties feedback on the material development. The third stage of the educational setting exploits social interaction to help students reorganize their knowledge of the concepts under study. The web-based application of the proposed educational setting indicated improvement in first-year Computer Science (CS) students’ understanding of fundamental Computer Architecture concepts and progress in students’ linking-inference skills. These results encourage integration in the instructional process of interventions designed according to the proposed setting in order to support and enhance students’ understanding of troublesome concepts and their interrelations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of digital concept cartoons and maps in eliminating misconceptions of secondary school students. The research was conducted with 67 students who were studying at three different branches of 7th grade of secondary school. The research was conducted according to semi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test control group, and quantitative and qualitative research methods (mixed pattern) were used together. Accordingly, the mathematics classes in the Study Group I were conducted by the DCC method and the mathematics courses in the Study Group II were conducted by the DCM, and the mathematics courses in the control group were processed by traditional teaching method. In order to determine the students’ misconceptions before and after the experiment, Misconception Test was used which was applied as Pre-test and Post-test. In addition, students’ opinions and observation processes related to the use of DCC and DCM in mathematics class were included in the experimental process. As a result of the data analysis, there was no statistically significant difference between Study Group I, Study Group II and control group when the results of the Misconception test of the control and study groups were compared. In addition, students stated that the use of DCC and DCM in mathematics course have advantages such as making the courses enjoyable, drawing attention, increasing interest in the course, and visualizing the course topics. In the direction of the findings obtained from the research, various suggestions were made to the teachers and researchers about the use of DCC and DCM in secondary school mathematics courses.