Collaborative Research: Expanding Subgoal Labels for Imperative Programming to Further Improve Student Learning Outcomes

IUSE的学生参与学习项目旨在通过开发、实施和研究一种教学方法来为国家利益服务，这种教学方法可以使面临失败或放弃编程入门课程风险的学生受益。未来的劳动力将需要或受益于编程知识，这意味着大多数（如果不是全部的话）学生应该成功完成初始编程课程。该项目建立在先前使用子目标标签开发、实现和评估学习编程有效性的工作的基础上，并提供证据证明使用子目标标签学习的学生在初始评估中表现更好，并且不太可能不及格或放弃课程。该项目通过招募和培训额外的指导员来扩展这项工作，以使用子目标教学材料，并使用编程语言Java开发和评估额外的教学材料。将在Java中开发的指导材料将涵盖其他编程主题，如继承、多态性和递归。教学材料将包括工作实例、实践问题和评估，所有这些都在电子书中实现，以最大限度地利用。通过扩大教学材料的用途、主题和编程语言，将进一步证明学生的学习和记忆能力得到了提高。将对初始子目标的结果与更高级的Java主题和Python子目标的结果进行比较。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This IUSE Engaged Student Learning project aims to serve the national interest by developing, implementing, and studying an instructional method that benefits students at risk of failure or dropping an introductory course in programming. The future workforce will require or benefit from programming knowledge, which means that most, if not all, students should successfully complete an initial programming course. This project builds on prior work that developed, implemented, and assessed the effectiveness of learning programming using subgoal labels and provided evidence that students who learned with subgoal labels perform better on initial assessments, and are less likely to fail or drop the course. This project extends that work by recruiting and training additional instructors to use subgoal instructional materials, and to develop, and evaluate, additional instructional materials using the programing language Java.The instructional materials that will be developed in Java will cover additional programming topics such as inheritance, polymorphism, and recursion. Instructional materials will include worked examples, practice problems, and assessments, all implemented in eBooks for maximum usage. By expanding the use, topics, and programming language within the instructional materials, further evidence of improved student learning and retention will be generated. Comparison of the initial subgoal results with those from more advanced Java topics and Python subgoals will be evaluated. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.