Determining the Effectiveness of the 3D Alice Programming Environment at the Computer Science I Level

Autor/in	Sykes, Edward R.
Titel	Determining the Effectiveness of the 3D Alice Programming Environment at the Computer Science I Level
Quelle	In: Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36 (2007) 2, S.223-244 (22 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0735-6331
Schlagwörter	Computer Software; Student Interests; Programming; Computer Science; Enrollment; Student Attrition; Course Descriptions; Surveys; Student Evaluation; Scores; Comparative Analysis; Course Evaluation; Instructional Effectiveness + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Studieninteresse; Programmierung; Informatik; Einschulung; Schülerbeurlaubung; Kursstrukturplan; Survey; Umfrage; Befragung; Schulnote; Studentische Bewertung; Unterrichtserfolg
Abstract	Student retention in Computer Science is becoming a serious concern among Educators in many colleges and universities. Most institutions currently face a significant drop in enrollment in Computer Science. A number of different tools and strategies have emerged to address this problem (e.g., BlueJ, Karel Robot, etc.). Although these tools help to minimize attrition, they have not made significant improvements to this widespread problem. A newcomer to the scene called Alice has been met with positive results by captivating student interest through its rich 3D visual programming environment. During the fall of 2005, Alice, a newly published textbook, and numerous resources were used in Computer Science I at McMaster University. This article provides an overview of Alice, an assessment of this new course including qualitative surveys, informal observations, and quantitative analysis including student performance score results. Despite numerous technical problems, it was found that the Alice Group exceeded the performance of Comparison Groups: F(1, 93) = 30.322, p less than 0.001 (between C1 and Alice group); F(1, 81) = 4.182, p = 0.044 (between C2 and Alice Group). (Contains 7 tables and 5 figures.) (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10