Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The focus of this thesis is on techniques for providing feedback and scaffolding in computer science education to enhance student motivation and engagement in programming language learning. Based on initial research on the use of gamification as a feedback mechanism, research gaps relating to adaptive and self-paced learning strategies are identified. In addition, approaches for the generation of single-choice examination questions and programming tasks were developed to tackle challenges arisen during the thesis. These developments, in turn, created the need to enhance formative quality assurance supported by generative artificial intelligence. The main objective of this thesis is on how to improve student motivation and engagement in programming education through the integration of programming-related tasks, scaffolding techniques and other supportive strategies. The research addresses the impact of digital tools and platforms on the teaching and learning processes and examines their impact on teachers, examiners and students. To achieve these objectives, a combination of research methods was used, including a systematic literature review, grounded theory and design science approaches, supported by prototyping and experimental evaluations. The main contributions are a literature study that identifies trends and gaps in the use of gamified feedback in computer science education. In addition, the creation of a template- based task generator for producing varied exam questions is presented. Subsequently, the generator approach is applied to programming tasks and a framework is developed for adaptive programming tasks, that takes into account the student knowledge about task solution and problem context. This is followed by an experimental study to test the usefulness of created hints based on the framework, as well as the role of computational thinking and motivational factors in programming success. Finally, an approach is presented that examines the ability of generative artificial intelligence to be used for formative quality assurance for exam question.:Contents II List of Figures III Acronyms IV 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation and Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Research Objectives and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.3 Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.4 Research Area Overview and Interdisciplinary Context . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.4.1 Computer Science Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.4.2 Computational Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.4.3 Task Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.4.4 Individualized Programming Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.4.5 Gamification, Gameful Learning and Gameful Feedback . . . . . . 14 1.4.6 AI in Educational Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1.5 Contextualization and Connection between Individual Research Papers . . . 18 1.6 Outline of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2 Literature Study 22 2.1 A Systematic Literature Review of Gameful Feedback in Computer Science Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3 Single-Choice Generator 30 3.1 Template-Based Generator for Single-Choice Questions . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4 Feature-based task design 49 4.1 A Didactic Framework for Generating Individual Programming Tasks . . . 49 5 Experiment 61 5.1 Hint Levels for the Solution Space: Exploring the Connection between Com- putational Thinking and Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 6 Formative QA with AI 91 6.1 Assisting Quality Assurance of Examination Tasks: Using a GPT Model and Bayesian Testing for Formative Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 7 Conclusion and Outlook 127 7.1 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 7.2 Recommendations for Teaching and Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 7.3 Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Bibliography V Wissenschaftlicher Werdegang XXXI Selbstständigkeitserklärung XXXII
Author: Willert, Nico
Institution: Leipzig University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7009568857