Experimental Analysis of First-Grade Students' Block-Based Programming Problem Solving Processes
Gabriele Pozzan, Costanza Padova, Chiara Montuori, Barbara Arfé, Tullio Vardanega · 2024
This work presents an experimental analysis of first-grade students' block-based programming trajectories. These trajectories consist of edit-level program snapshots that capture learners' problem-solving processes in a navigational microworld. Our results highlight the potential of this fine-grained data capture. Snapshot frequencies in trajectories collected before and after a coding intervention showcase the collective progress of the learners. Graph visualizations, in which nodes represent snapshots and directed edges code edits, highlight strategies, pitfalls and debugging procedures. Individual programming trajectories shed light on details of learners' problem-solving processes that less granular analysis would conceal. Various works in the field of Learning Analytics research show the usefulness of collecting fine-grained process data that proceed from programming activities. However, how to analyze this data is still an open question and research on the subject is in an experimental phase. We contribute to this experimentation by analyzing and discussing results collected from 30 first-grade students in a pretest-posttest study.