Creating a Trajectory for Code Writing: Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks

Shruthi Ravikumar, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Thevathayan, Maria Spichkova, Kashif Ali, Gayan Wijesinghe

2024

Abstract

Many students in introductory programming courses fare poorly in the code writing tasks of the final sum-mative assessment. Such tasks are designed to assess whether novices have developed the analytical skills to translate from the given problem domain to coding. In the past researchers have used instruments such as code-explain and found that the extent of cognitive depth reached in these tasks correlated well with code writing ability. However, the need for manual marking and personalized interviews used for identifying cognitive difficulties limited the study to a small group of stragglers. To extend this work to larger groups, we have devised several question types with varying cognitive demands collectively called Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks (ARTs), which do not require manual marking. These tasks require levels of reasoning which can define a learning trajectory. This paper describes these instruments and the machine learning models used for validating them. We have used the data collected in an introductory programming course in the penultimate week of the semester which required attempting ART type instruments and code writing. Our preliminary research suggests ART type instruments can be combined with specific machine learning models to act as an effective learning trajectory and early prediction of code-writing skills.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Ravikumar S., Hamilton M., Thevathayan C., Spichkova M., Ali K. and Wijesinghe G. (2024). Creating a Trajectory for Code Writing: Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE; ISBN 978-989-758-696-5, SciTePress, pages 649-656. DOI: 10.5220/0012706900003687

in Bibtex Style

@conference{enase24,
author={Shruthi Ravikumar and Margaret Hamilton and Charles Thevathayan and Maria Spichkova and Kashif Ali and Gayan Wijesinghe},
title={Creating a Trajectory for Code Writing: Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE},
year={2024},
pages={649-656},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012706900003687},
isbn={978-989-758-696-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE
TI - Creating a Trajectory for Code Writing: Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks
SN - 978-989-758-696-5
AU - Ravikumar S.
AU - Hamilton M.
AU - Thevathayan C.
AU - Spichkova M.
AU - Ali K.
AU - Wijesinghe G.
PY - 2024
SP - 649
EP - 656
DO - 10.5220/0012706900003687
PB - SciTePress