Study Habits of CS 1 Students: What do they say they do?

Judy Sheard Faculty of Information Technology

Monash University Caulfield East, Australia

judy.sheard@monash.edu

Donald Chinn Institute of Technology

University of Washington, Tacoma Tacoma, WA, USA 98402 dchinn@u.washington.edu

Angela Carbone Office of the PVC (Learning & Teaching)

Monash University Caulfield East, Australia

angela.carbone@monash.edu

Mikko-Jussi Laakso Department of Information Technology and

Turku Centre for Computer Science (TUCS)University of Turku, Finland

milaak@utu.fi

Abstract—With the growing use of the Web in university education, increasingly student learning activity is happening outside of the classroom. Consequently it is becoming more and more difficult for teachers to know how their students are going about the learning process. This is of particular concern for the teaching of programming as students typically find this task hard and programming courses often experience high dropout rates. The aim of our research was to explore the study habits of introductory programming students to discover what motivates them to engage in particular activities and use particular resources, and what activities and resources they find valuable for their learning. Twelve introductory programming students were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. From our study we gained a holistic understanding of the students’ journeys in learning programming during their introductory programming course. A key finding was that the classroom experience is no longer central to students’ learning.Many students had abandoned textbooks and other teacher-provided resources and are heavily reliant on the internet as source of help and of learning.

Keywords—study habits, learning behaviour, CS1, MOOCs

I. INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of the Web into the educational arena, university teaching and learning environments have undergone phenomenal change. The development and wide adoption of learning management systems has enabled course material and resources that are presented in face-to-face classes to also be made available online. Students now have greater flexibility in choices of mode, place, and time of learning. They have a greater number of resources available in a wider variety of styles and presentation. However, with the ready access to online course materials and other resources, the impetus to

attend face-to-face classes has diminished, and there has been a widely reported drop in class attendance [1].

As educators we prepare a course with expectations of how students will respond to the classes we hold and how they will make use of the resources we provide. During the running of a course we gather feedback on students’ responses to the face-to-face teaching environment informally through discussions with students and observations of them whilst they work. This feedback allows monitoring of student learning, enabling immediate adjustments to the teaching program and informing future deliveries of the course. However, increasingly student learning activity is happening outside rather than within the classroom, and it is becoming more and more difficult for teachers to gather information about their students’ learning behaviour. This is of particular concern for introductory programming classes as students typically find programming hard to learn and these courses often experience high dropout rates [2].

The aim of our Study Habits research project is to explore the study habits of introductory programming students both in and outside of the classroom with the aim of understanding the strategies they use in their efforts to learn programming. For the first stage of our research we surveyed students to determine the time students were spending on study activities, what resources they used and what resources they found useful. This research found that students were studying and using resources differently to what their educators expected [3]. The key findings were: 1) students were spending less time on their study than recommended; 2) most students studied alone; and 3) students spent as much time accessing the Internet for their study as reading their text book. What were not determined from this stage were the details of where, when, what, how, and who they studied with and the reasons for their study behaviour.

2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.46

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2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.46

122

In the second stage, reported in this paper, we built on our previous work by interviewing introductory programming students to gain insights into the reasons for the choices they make in regard to their study. The goal was to discover what factors influence students’ study habits, and what activities and resources are valuable for their learning. The motivation for this work is based on the premise that as educators we can influence the way students study and guide them in effective study practices.

In the following section we present an overview of related work and we then describe our study method. The results of our study are then presented. The paper concludes with adiscussion of the implications of the findings.

II. BACKGROUND

Learning to program is a difficult task. Understanding how students go about this process, the effectiveness of their learning behaviour and possible influences on this behaviourhas been the subject of a large corpus of research [4].

Learning to program involves both theoretical and practical activities. A typical programming course involves lectures where content is delivered to an entire cohort and smaller tutorial groups where students work on practical problems on computer. In these classes the learning activities of the students are largely directed by the teacher. There is much research about various teaching strategies for computing classes. For example, Chinn, Martin and Spencer [5] report on their adaption and use of Treisman’s instructional technique [6]; Porter, Bailey-Lee, Simon, and Zingaro [7] investigate the use of Peer Instruction; and Hanks, Fitzgerald, McCauley, Murphy, and Zander [8] review the extensive literature on pair programming. These teaching approaches all focus on creating effective learning experiences for students in the classroom. Not necessarily restricted to the classroom, Hamer et al. review the use of a contributing student pedagogy (CSP) in which students contribute to the learning of others and are encouraged to value the contributions of others [9].

Also important for understanding the learning of programming is knowing what students do outside the classroom. In a programming course, students are typically given practice tasks and assignments to work on in their own time. These are valuable for consolidating learning, and developing problem solving and independent learning skills. These may be in the form of online activities in which student activity is recorded. Peerwise [10] and ViLLE [11] are examples of tools which provide such activities. More difficult to know, however, is what other learning activities students engage in. Sheard, Carbone and Hurst [1] propose that the apparent drop in on-campus classes attendances indicates that the current generation of students, the Net Generation, have study habits that are different from previous generations. Aquestion of interest then is what are students doing outside the classroom and away from the online learning management system? What are their study habits?

A. Study Habits There have been several studies about computing students’

study habits. Berlund and Wiggberg [12] used

phenomenography as a way to gain insight into how students learn. An outcome of their work is seven categories of how students appear to learn, such as “Learning CS through learning to use application programs” and “Learning CS through giving meaning to concepts”. Their results are based on interviews with 3rd and 4th year students who intended to pursue a Masters degree in computer science. Edwards et al. [13] used data regarding CS1 student program submissions,such the number of submissions, time of submissions, time elapsed between the first and last submission, and how much code was written. Their goal was to detect any differences in the way A and B grade students behaved with respect to these metrics compared with lower performing students. Gomes, Santos, and Mendes [14] used a survey to ask CS1 students their perceptions of their class, their study approach, and their motivation. The goal of this research, as with that of Edwards et al., was to see if there were any correlations between these factors and performance in the class. Hanks, Murphy, Simon, McCauley, and Zander [15] collected advice from students about how to succeed in computer science. The result was a set of general and programming-specific habits that instructors could provide for their students.

Whereas the aim of many studies on student study habits is to determine what study habits the successful students tend to have, we have a somewhat different philosophical stance and motivation. As instructors, we want all our students to learn as much as possible. The purpose of our study is to understand how all students study so that as instructors, we can better predict what course resources students will find useful and, if a resource is not effective, perhaps devise better ways to organise the resource so that it is more useful. In other words, we wish to understand student study habits so that we can apply the principle of “meeting the students where they are” when we design our CS1 course.

B. Good Learning Behaviours A study by Carbone [16] investigated students’ learning of

programming through their performance on tasks. In her research Carbone used a set of observable good learning behaviours devised by Baird and Mitchell [17] to help teachers monitor their students’ progress in the classroom. The observable good learning behaviours were used to gain insights into students’ cognitive and metacognitive activity. Metacognition can be defined as awareness and knowledge of one’s learning processes. Effective learning is associated with engagement in higher levels of learning and use of metacognitive skills and reflective practices. Metacognitive skills enable students to monitor, evaluate and regulate their own learning strategies [18, 19]. Metacognition is an important ability for the development of independent learning, encouraging students to take more responsibility for their learning, one of the main objectives of a university education.

The Baird and Mitchell observable Good Learning Behaviours provided a framework for our study, enabling us to explore the effectiveness of the students study habits. The behaviours covered six broad areas as follows:

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Plans and Anticipates – students decide what activitiesneed to be done, anticipate difficulties and develop a strategy to achieve their desired goal.

Seeks Assistance – students identify what they don’t understand and actively seek assistance.

Checks Progress – students check their work against instructions, sample examples and solutions, correcting any errors and omissions.

Reflects on Work – students reflect on their work,demonstrating awareness and understanding. They seek links between activities, ideas and learning.

Links to Beliefs and Experience – students evaluate and monitor their learning. They seek links between personal beliefs and experiences and check for consistency in their understanding.

Independence – students take responsibility for their learning. They suggest new activities, offer insights and alternative explanations.

For our Study Habits research project we surveyed a class of introductory programming students and interviewed twelve of these. The aims of the study were firstly to gain understanding of student study habits, specifically where, when and how students study and who they study with. Secondly, the study aimed to gain deeper understanding of the effectiveness of students’ study habits. This was done by analysing their interview responses through the lens of the Good Learning Behaviours framework

III. STUDY CONTEXT

The Study Habits research project investigated study habits of students enrolled in an introductory programming unit1at an Australian University. The unit is taught across four Information Technology (IT) degrees.

Students attend one 2-hour lecture, one 1-hour tutorial andone 2-hour laboratory class per week. The unit is delivered across 13 weeks, with the last week reserved for revision. Students attend lectures on campus. All students are provided with the following set of learning resources via a learning management system, Moodle.

Lecture notes are presented as PowerPoint presentations. Lectures are also audio recorded. Students can either download an MP3 file or audio stream the recording two hours after the end of each lecture.

Summary sheets consolidate the key concepts of the week on a single A4 page. Summary sheets include the purpose of the week’s content, some key objectives, and the relevant reading.

Tutorial exercises and solutions. Tutorials are held in flat rooms without computers. In tutorial classes a tutor facilitates discussion and group work. Tutorial exercises are not assessed but it is a requirement for students to attend at least ten of the

1 “Unit” refers to a single semester program of study. In other contexts, “course” or “subject” may be used.

twelve tutorial sessions. Solutions are released two weeks after the tutorial class.

Practical exercises and solutions. Laboratory classes are held in rooms equipped with PCs that run a Java IDE. Lab exercises are not assessed but there is a requirement to attend at least ten of the twelve laboratory sessions. Solutions are released two weeks after the lab class.

Assignments. Three assignments each worth 10% and due in weeks 4, 9, and 12 of semester.

Mid-semester test and sample test. A mid-semester test worth 10% is held in week 6 of semester.

ViLLE quizzes [11]. Weekly online quizzes were provided for the students to work on outside class hours and were not compulsory. Students were able to attempt the quizzes as many times as they liked, and each attempt was graded automatically by the system, but not counted in the student’s final grade.

IV. RESEARCH APPROACH

The Study Habits research project was conducted in twostages: a survey and a set of interviews. This paper focuses on the results of the interview stage; the results of the survey are reported elsewhere [3]. The research was conducted by a team of four researchers who are the authors of this paper.

A. Stage 1: Survey For the first stage of the research, the students were

surveyed in the middle of semester during their tutorial classes. The paper-based questionnaire contained questions to gather information about the time students spent on study, resources they used and found useful and course performance. At the time of the survey the respondents were also asked if they were willing to be interviewed as part of the second stage of the research.

B. Stage 2: Interviews There were 166 students enrolled in the unit. The cohort

comprised 138 (83%) males and 28 (17%) females. Students who agreed to participate in the second stage were selected for an interview based on their survey responses. Purposive sampling was used to choose participants. The selection aimed for a gender mix, different amounts of time spent on study activities and using resources, in an attempt to gather a wide range of study experiences. A total of 12 students were interviewed from a pool of 59 volunteers. There were 8 male and 4 female students. We did not directly ask our participants whether they were local or international students, but based on the way they answered some of our questions, we appeared to have interviewed a few international students. Also, we did not directly ask them what their age was, but they all appeared to be aged 18 to 25 years old.

The students were interviewed towards the end of semester. The interviews were conducted by two of the authors who were not involved in teaching the unit. A semi-structured interview protocol was used with a set of questions prepared by the project team. The questions were designed to gain deeper understanding of the students’ study habits. During each

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interview, the interviewers also followed up on individual survey responses. The interviews were 19-38 minutes in duration. All interviews were audio taped and transcribed.

The interview transcripts were analysed using the qualitative data analysis tool NVivo. All authors were involved in the analysis. The transcripts were first coded to explore particular aspects of students’ study habits – where, when, how students study and who do they study with. The aim was to gain a better understanding of the survey responses. Following this the transcripts were searched for themes relating to the categories in the Good Learning Behavior framework. The transcripts were repeatedly reviewed and re-coded by the team. During this process each transcript was read by each author at least once.

The following two sections report the findings of the analysis of the student interviews. These are organisedaccording to the two aspects of the study: Study Habits and Good Learning Behaviours.

V. STUDY HABITS

A. Where students study Students studied in different places. Many studied at home,

many studied on campus, and many studied in both places.When students studied on campus, they tended to do so in the library. Some also read on the train travelling to and from university. Students’ choice of home or campus largely hinged on whether there were distractions. For some, it was difficult to study in the library, and on campus in general, because they would run into friends and engage in conversation unrelated to studies.

I hang around uni there’s too many distractions, friends and such, but at home it’s just computer and if Google has a lot of answers that I understand. (i-7)

For others, it was difficult to study at home because of family or noise, and so they studied primarily on campus. One student reported that on weekends, she studied at a local library:

I try to get home as early as I can before my parents get home from work ’cause that’s when the noise starts, and in those hours I’ll try and get a little work done, and then on the weekends I’ll go straight to the library which is about 30 seconds from my house. (i-9)

B. When students study Most students indicated that they regularly spent far less

time studying for the unit than the recommended eight hours:

… in the labs I usually get all my questions answered. There’s not a lot of study time at home unless I really don’t understand the concept or something in programming. (i-7)

Many claimed that they did just a couple of hours of study aweek, either just before or after the labs and tutorials:

So probably a few hours a week… just study before the tutorial…And when I come home from lab. (i-1)

However, they also spoke about intense periods of study during the assignment time or exam time:

On this particular unit, I only really knuckle down and do a lot of work when it comes to assignment time and of course exam time. (i-3)

I spent my whole weekend doing my assignment, the weekend that just passed. (i-4)

C. How students study Outside of class students employed different study

techniques to understand the unit content. Most claimed they read unit materials. Typically these were the lecture notes (in some cases these were read before the lecture) and summary notes. The text book was typically used as a reference or forexamples of exercises. Some students mentioned reading and re-reading these resources if they were stuck. Many students also sourced online materials and indicated they had a heavy reliance on these.

Most students reported that they attempted the lab and tutorial exercises outside of class time. Some claimed that they copied and ran code examples to see how they worked. The students indicated that they appreciated that working on practical problems was necessary for effective learning ofprogramming.

D. Who students study withStudents generally found that working with others was

helpful because it allowed them to check their answers or ideas. However, most students found that if they worked with their friends, then a study session could devolve into talking about other things. As one student explained

I prefer to work by myself ’cause I actually get the work done, whereas if I’m with friends, we’ll drift off or watch some YouTube clips. So basically we procrastinate a lot. ... In a way I don’t want to work in a group because I don’t want to raise questions or problems that I have because they’ll think, oh she’s so dumb, why doesn’t she get this kind of thing. (i-4)

Most students commented that they worked best on their own. For example:

I’d rather work alone because that’s when I can basically just sit down and just chill and just kind of absorb everything. I can explain it to myself better than I think others can at times. I don’t know, that’s just how I work better. (i-10)

VI. GOOD LEARNING BEHAVIOURS

This section reports the analysis of the interview data in terms of the six categories of the Good Learning Behaviours framework.

A. Plans and Anticipates

Most students clearly articulated how they studied, some giving indications of having a study strategy. A couple of illustrative examples:

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Well before each lecture I will look at the lecture notes and if there’s things I don’t understand I will go to the study guide secondarily, read through, and then go to the lecture. And then… I’ll go to the tutorials and the labs and then in the labs I usually get all my questions answered. (i-7)

Well I’ll look at the assignment and then I’ll go through the text book and look at sections relevant to it. I’ll read over that. If that makes sense to me I’ll go over the tutes and the slides, all that, and find out stuff on that. And then I’ll starting working through the problems in the labs ‘cause they’re usually very relevant to the assignments. (i-8)

A number of students indicated that an important factor in planning where to study was avoidance of sources of distraction. As one student explained:

I mostly get my work done at home ‘cause I don’t have any distraction. But before my tutorial I’ll go to the library to study, the campus library. (i-4)

One student proposed that planning ahead was necessary to learn effectively.

I’ll get the material and I’ll say okay, we need to do this now, but then I’ll go to a lab and I’ll actually do it. I’ll actually implement what we’ve seen and that sticks in my head a lot more than actually just watching a lecture and hearing someone talk about it. (i-6)

Lack of time due to other commitments or future events provided strong impetus for planning. As one student reported:

… my family is overseas, I haven’t seen them for the last 4½ years. I’m planning to go there in my holidays and I don’t go for nights out and stuff ‘cause I’ve left them to the holidays. (i-5)

B. Seeks Assistance There were various ways that students obtained help with

their work. Very few students indicated that they actively sought help from teaching staff, and, if they did, it was usually consulting a tutor at the help desk. One student reported:

I went a few times [to consultation]… sometimes I kind of stay back to ask my tutor a few questions or during the class when we’re finished with a tutorial, to get some of my questions answered. … I’m trying to get help from whoever I can. (i-1)

A number of students used the discussion forums provided on the learning management system because they found that if there was a question or confusion, then there would often be someone who had asked a related question on the forum.

Most students indicated that their friends were a source of help:

I mostly go online and ask my friends ‘cause normally my friends are online, so when I study I contact them and tell them look I’m stuck here, so it’s try and help me out. (i-5)

However, this was not always dependable, as one student explained:

[I seek help from] friends and classmates … but not a lot ‘cause they seem to be having problems as well. We’re just in the same boat. Yeah if they don’t get it, I don’t get it, then we all don’t get it. (i-4)

Overwhelmingly, however, the Internet appeared to be the main source of help and the first “port of call”. Many students reported that they used the Internet and Google as a way to find alternative explanations of the materials or obtain sample code. A couple of typical comments:

…I guess [the Internet’s] probably the first thing that pops into mind. (i-11)

That’s the big resource, yeah, Internet. Most of every student goes to Internet to do course lessons … the assignment too, someone even posted the whole assignment there. (i-5)

Students indicated that they had turned away from traditional resources. As a couple of students explained:

… I’m pretty sure there’s like problem books in the library, other than the text book. I’m pretty sure. But I haven’t used it much. (i-2)

Few students indicated that they read the textbook. Instead, they tended to use it as a reference when they were stuck while doing the programming assignments or if to seek clarification if they did not understand a concept. Others used the textbook as a source of sample code.

… I don’t actually own the text book, I’m sorry to say, but really the only reason for that is the stupid amount of information that’s available on Java online. Like some provide all of this Java documentation. I have had a flick through the text book, don’t get me wrong, and I just found that what is available online although it may not be 100% equivalent to what’s available in the text book, you’ve got it sitting right in front of you, it’s always readily available, you can always access it, and yeah it’s … community teaching. … yeah the internet is very useful. (i-3)

C. Checks Progress The students had different ways of checking their progress

with their work. Mostly these related to their performance of programming exercises. At the most basic level some students just compiled and ran their programs with limited testing of output, as suggested by these comments:

Build, compile and then run it. And if it does what I think it’s supposed to do, then I’m happy with it. And then I get the lab to check it. (i-9)

…I’ll sit there and I’m like… I’ll do a few tests after the process completed, like say if there’s a limit or a range to whatever I want to put input in. If I put something above then this error message should pop up, then it does pop up. Then mostly I reckon it’s right. (i-4)

However, most students reported that they checked their solutions to exercises by comparing them with sample solutions or friends’ solutions.

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With the labs you do it and then you can see how someone else would have done it, as opposed to what you’ve done.And even if you couldn’t do it, you can say okay, I’ve done this but I was missing this, this and this. (i-6)

[I look at my friend’s code] and see if we’re equal …actually works, and if it doesn’t what’s different in his code. (i-2)

Students found solutions were also useful as models or samples of code that they could emulate or see how something should be done correctly, and this was useful for checking their progress. As one student explained:

You have to have the solutions for the exercises so students can go ahead and see if they’re right. There’s no learning… if I don’t know that I’m right about something because then what’s the point of remembering, suddenly it could be wrong. (i-3)

Some students indicated that they checked their comprehension of the unit material by reading but most used the more active approach of working through examples:

I usually go over the material again and do any exercise I couldn’t do, try to do them at least to kind of catch up. (i-08)

I type [programs] out myself as well to see what other outputs there are and such so it’s really helpful to understand things. (i-7)

A few students mentioned that they sought out others to discuss the work with and this helped them with their understanding:

… sometimes you might get the tutor to have a look over it or just anyone in general – anyone who doesn’t know the subject maybe. Just get someone who might know the information just to go over it … because their idea might be slightly different from yours. Get some different ideas from each other and try to get the right answer in the end. (i-11)

Another means of checking progress was available through ViLLE quizzes which were released weekly as self-test exercises. Students who did the ViLLE quizzes regularly found them useful; however, these were voluntary and not used much during the unit.

D. Reflects on the Work Students’ reflections on their work throughout the

interviews showed their awareness and knowledge of their learning at a metacognitive level. During the interviews students indicated metacognitive skills in their explanations of how they believed they should go about learning programming. A number recognised the importance of “learning by doing.” Some sample comments:

… we don’t copy paste stuff. Waste of time … because if you copy and paste then you don’t understand anything …when you have to actually do it yourself. (i-1).

Yeah, I’ve got cousins who can do assignments for me but I don’t want them to do it for me ’cause I want to learn. … You learn more, when you do more. … I learnt more when I

did my assignments cause when you do your assignments you actually do the stuff and forcefully you have to make it work so you read everything again and go back to it again, then I look up to the sample answers of labs and see what I was missing, and then I figure it out somehow. … and actually doing it. You learn more, when you do more. (i-5)

… I reckon programming is a subject that you learn way more by experiencing and typing things up yourself. Just sitting in tutorial just listening to the tutor talk, you don’t really absorb much. (i-7)

The students’ reflections on their classes showed that most found the labs classes, where they worked on practical exercises, more useful than tutorials. As one student commented:

The lab is also very, very useful, but the tutorial not quite as useful as the lab. Just because during the lab you really get to trial and error with code. It’s very different I guess to the tutorial where you just answer the questions. (i-3)

A student who was repeating the unit gave insights into their study habits which they concluded had led to a lack of success in learning programming.

I think I just didn’t study that much but I read the stuff but I think it just didn’t go in my head or something. … Yeah, cause I now I know where I am so I could build from there. Like I know where I went wrong. (i-2)

One student showed a deep understanding of the amount of effort needed to learn programming:

[programming] does take time. it’s not something you can learn in a few hours, you’ve sort to go to keep going over it. So I think it’s just something you’ve just got to keep putting the time in. I don’t think there’s any quick fix that makes you do it. (i-11)

E. Links to Beliefs and Experiences Searching for and recognising links between beliefs and

personal experiences, enabled students to monitor and regulate their learning. This gave further evidence of metacognitive skills. Several students showed awareness of their own particular learning style and were able to link this to their experiences of learning programming. An illustrative example:

… I don’t have that frame of mind to be able to look at a whole situation and pull it apart like that. I prefer going through and seeing it. Whereas a lot of people that do the subject now are able to see a program and it’ll all just kind of seem to make sense to them. It’s just not the frame of mind I have for doing that. (i-6)

One student had decided that their style of learning meant that they needed to see a solution to a program before they could work out how to write the code:

Well I’m a pretty visual learner … so I remember what a piece of code looks like and then I’ll be able to implement it …. I like to look at the solution ideally just to see what it is I’m trying to achieve … I guess I learn backwards, I have to know what it is I’m learning before I can go ahead and implement it, if that makes sense. … I believe I have an

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understanding of how I learn and I found that I’ve been using this particular method for a long time and it’s quite successful for me. If I just look at a solution and how it’s applied to one circumstance then I can take that and reverse it and apply it to another circumstance. (i-3)

A number of students mentioned distraction as an issue and described ways that they dealt with it. For example, most students brought a laptop to campus and there were often used in lectures to take notes or to follow lecture slides. Some students found that it was too easy to get distracted by games, facebook, or email and so they had stopped using their laptop during lectures. However, they were still distracted when others nearby were using their laptops.

Yes, and it’s quite distracting cause my eye just goes to someone playing games and I just stare at that and I just tune out of the lecture completely. (i-10).

Metacognitive skills were also evidenced by students’ explanations of how they were able to overcome difficulties in learning programming

I usually have kind of barrier, if I can break that barrier, I understand it. But if I can’t, I fall behind. So breaking the barrier, how do you try and break the barrier? Just put in as much time and effort as you can and ask as many questions as many people as you can. (i-1).

F. Independence The students’ study habits indicated a range of

independence in their learning behavior and willingness to take responsibility for their own learning. Most showed some degree of independence which was often expressed as a desire to work alone. Some illustrative responses:

I’ve always been an independent learner. I’m a quiet person. I don’t like people hovering over me. I like to go away and then write my own notes and understand it better myself. And then later on, someone else, and try and teach them. I don’t know, I just like studying by myself. Less distractions. All my work is done. (i-9)

So I find it’s best off if I work alone. That way if I leave something to late and I know I can do it in the time allocated then I’ll just go ahead and do that. Yeah it’s different for a group assignment obviously. People get uncomfortable with that. (i-3)

It’s not that I don’t like getting help from other people, it’s just like with … like I’ll go off and do it, that’s just the style I use. (i-8)

However, there were a few students who seemed less willing to take responsibility for their learning. For example, these students preferred to be instructed and not be asked to contribute in class:

[The tutors] won’t teach you anything. They want you to do it yourself. At least they should show us once how to do it. (i-5)

I prefer if she went through all of us. Not really like asking us all what you get and then she’ll explain to the group. Iprefer like being taught. Like if you show me the answer,

show me the steps of it, then I more easily remember later on so then I’ll be able to do it in the test. (i-4)

Another student expressed a preference for the type of teaching that they had experienced at school

I started off real well. I was like on a roll I think. During one period of time I started slacking off because I’m just so tired. I just came out of high school, it’s so different to high school. I miss high school so much – missing spoon feeding, I really miss that a lot. I miss having a teacher behind my back, ‘oh have you done this’, then that really pushes me to a point that I have to do it. Whereas oh if you don’t do it at uni, that’s okay, that’s your own fault. Then I’ll just suck it up and have to do it. Face the consequences later … (i-4)

The last two students are good examples of typical first year students who have trouble adjusting to the type of teaching used at university and have strong preferences for learning behaviours developed during their secondary school education.

VII. DISCUSSION

From our study we gained a holistic understanding of students’ study habits during their introductory programming course. A key finding was that the classroom experience is no longer central to students’ education. Instead students have turned to the Internet as a source of learning and assistance.Students have become less reliant on their teachers and have all but abandoned textbooks and other traditional teacher-provided resources. Although the classroom experience is not as important, students still value the on-campus experience which provides opportunities to meet with other students.

This apparent mismatch in teacher expectations and student behaviour might give universities the impetus to rethink the type of educational experiences we provide for our students. Perhaps there are opportunities to accommodate students in the way they want to study? If students are comfortable seeking learning resources on the Internet, why not incorporate this into the course design? The “flipped classroom” where there is a reversal of lecture and homework elements is one such model [20]. The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) [21] could be utilised in such a model. An interesting feature of MOOCs is they have enabled creation of face-to-face study groups and self-appointed teaching assistants which could satisfy students’ need for the on-campus experience.

Accommodating students’ preferred way of learning could perhaps help with another issue raised by students during the interviews. The most common problem mentioned by students was distraction from a variety of sources. Students were distracted by other students, technology (e.g. laptops in lectures), and the wealth of online resources available. Perhaps directing students to appropriate online resources and incorporating laptops into the learning activities in lectures could help to alleviate this problem. Furthermore, in order to engage students in using these it would be preferable if these were required elements of a course, rather than standalone separate resources or activities.

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It was encouraging that many students indicated they understood that programming is best learnt by “doing”.However, their ways of approaching this varied. For example, a couple of students seemed reliant on having a model solution to work from or to learn by rote rather than solving it by themselves. There were indications that some students had learning styles which relied on teacher-directed learning, and in one case, at least, this indicated difficulty in adapting to the style of learning expected at university. This raises an important question for university educators: “How much we should teach new students these practical learning skills that are required for successful study performance at university level?” Based on our interviews it seems that we should be aware of these learning style preferences when designing learning activities and teaching programs.

VIII. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER WORK

Knowledge of student learning behaviour both in and out of the classroom is critical to the design of effective teaching programs and the provision of resources which are of value to students. Our study highlighted several areas for consideration and indicated possible directions for a pedagogical approach for the teaching of introductory programming which could accommodate the current Net generation students.

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