Student Performance and Collaboration in Introductory Courses to Theory of Computation.

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Autor/in	Frede, Christiane
Titel	Student Performance and Collaboration in Introductory Courses to Theory of Computation.
Quelle	Hamburg: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky (2021), 255 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (1); PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit Dissertation, Universität Hamburg, 2022.
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie
URN	urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-ediss-98947
Schlagwörter	Explorative Datenanalyse; Leistungsanalyse; Dissertation; Informatikunterricht; Theorie; Videotechnik; Explorative Datenanalyse; Leistung; Informatikunterricht; Videotechnik; Dissertation; Leistung; Theorie
Abstract	[...] Although computer science curriculum recommendations indicate that theory of computation courses are a highly relevant part of computer science undergraduate programs, the courses suffer from high failure rates, and only a minority of students perform well. [...] In the present work, I have undertaken a detailed investigation of the difficulties of students with theory of computation. Thereby, I provide more sustained information than the general assumptions on which current pedagogy has been based. In more detail, I conducted two studies: (1) a quantitative study within an introductory course about Formal Languages and Automata to investigate the student performance in all assignments and topics covered, and (2) a qualitative study to explore students´ difficulties in assignments selected based on the results of the quantitative study. Using an exploratory data analysis approach and a one-way analysis of variance, I analyzed the final exam and homework performance of about 1500 students over three consecutive years. The results show that all students perform low on almost all proof assignments, regardless of their final exam grades. While students performed worst in the final exam on an assignment that required a formal proof using the pumping lemma, performance on a similar homework assignment was not as low. Furthermore, I detected how one assignment of the first year of analysis had a significantly lower performance in the following years after a sub-task was added that required proof development. The results underline that students have most difficulties with formal proof assignments and add that this can affect students regardless of their final exam grade. Based on the performance discrepancy between pumping lemma final exams and homework assignments, I conducted a qualitative study. Using a videography and a video interaction analysis, I observed three student groups working on two pumping lemma homework assignments. Thereby, I came to the following conclusions: Students have the same difficulties on the pumping lemma assignments in final exams and homework. However, when it comes to homework, students usually solve the problems while working together, so performance on homework solutions tends to be higher than on individual final exams. Nevertheless, through an analysis of student interactions, I found that there is a particular distribution of roles in the groups. Generally, one student acts as an explaining teacher, one as a questioning student, while all other students hardly participate in the group work, regardless of the group size. One possible explanation for this type of distribution lies in how students externalize and internalize their knowledge. They focus heavily on the tutor session and their tutor´s explanations and use the sample solutions they receive online for various assignments as patterns for their own solutions. The overall study gives the impression that students in group work are trying to achieve a result that will earn them as many points as possible with the tutor, rather than really internalizing and learning the topics. Through an extensive quantitative study and a detailed qualitative study, the present work offers new insights and explanations for the low performance and high failure rates in theory of computation courses. The findings offer starting points for changing the pedagogical design to improve the poor situation in theory of computation courses. In addition to teaching proof skills, special attention needs to be paid to collaborative teaching-learning situations. (Orig. abridged).
Erfasst von	Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main
Update	2022/3