ONLINE COLLABORATION FOR PROGRAMMING: Assessing Students’ Cognitive Abilities

This study is primarily focused on assessing the students’ logical thinking and cognitive levels in an online collaborative environment. The aim is to investigate whether the online collaboration has significant impact to the students’ cognitive abilities. The assessment of the logical thinking involved the use of the online Group Assessment Logical Thinking (GALT) test that has been conducted in two phases; before and after the online collaborative activities. The sample of respondents for this study is sixty first year Diploma in Computer Science students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Perlis, Malaysia where they were divided into fifteen collaborative groups. These collaborative groups were then engaged in a 3-hour session of collaborative activities via the Online Collaborative Learning System (OCLS). The results for this study has revealed that the online collaborative learning has significant impact to the students’ logical thinking levels with the increment of 21.7% high logical thinkers with p-value<0.05 (sig. 2-tailed). Meanwhile, the investigation of the students’ cognitive levels is being done by monitoring the students’ abilities to solve the given questions via OCLS. The questions have been previously constructed according to the Bloom’s taxonomy cognitive domain. The results have also revealed that the students at the early stage of learning programming are able to solve complex programming problems at the cognitive level Application and Analysis. There was also a strong correlation between students’ logical thinking skills with their abilities to solve problems in an online platform with r= 0.631, significant at 0.012.

Keywords:

Online collaborative programming logical thinking, cognitive levels,

PDF

___

Tuna, A. K., Biber, C. & Incikapı, L. (2013). An analysis of mathematics teacher candidates’ logical thinking levels: Case of Turkey. Journal of Educational and Instructional Studies in the World, Vol. 3(1), pp. 83-91.
Atherton, J. S. (2005). Learning and Teaching: Piaget's developmental theory. http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Retrieved October 28, 2014.
Cavus, N. (2007). Assessing the success rate of students using a learning management system together with a collaborative tool in web-based teaching of programming languages.
J. Educational Computing Research, Vol. 36(3), pp. 301-321. Chen, J. W. & Chih, C. L. (2006). A van Hiele Web-based Learning System with Knowledge
Management for Teaching Programming. Proc. 6th IEEE Int. Conf. Advanced Learning Technologies, Washington D.C., USA, pp. 114-116. Cheung, R., (2006). A web-based learning environment for object-oriented programming.
Int. J. of Information & Operations Management Education, vol.1, no. 2, pp. 140-157. Lahtinen, E., Ala-Mutka, K., Jarvinen, H., (2005). A study of the difficulties of novice programmers. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 13-14.
Law, K .M. Y., Lee, V. C. S., & Yu, Y. T. (2010). Learning motivation in e-learning facilitated computer programming courses. Computers & Education,vol. 55, pp. 218–228.
Lay Yoon F. (2009). Logical Thinking Abilities among Form 4 Students in the Interior Division of Sabah, Malaysia, Journal of Science and Mathematics Education in Southeast Asia, vol. 32 (2), pp. 161-187.
Mahfudzah O., Fazlin M. H., Khairunnisa, N. (2010). Enhancing Logical Thinking among
Computer Science Students through Cooperative Learning, Gading Business and Management Journal, vol. 14 (1), pp. 1-10. Mahfudzah O., Muhaini O, Fazlin M. H. (2013). Designing Prototype Model of an Online
Collaborative Learning System for Introductory Computer Programming Course. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 90, pp. 293-302. McConnell, D. A., Steer, D. N., Owens, K., & Knight, C. (2005). How students think:
Implications for learning in introductory geoscience courses. Journal of Geoscience Education, vol. 53 (4), p. 462-470. Mohd, N. I., Nor Azilah N. & Irfan Naufal, U. (2006). Instructional strategy in the teaching of computer programming: What exactly is the problem? Proceedings of The Malaysian
Educational Technology Assocation (META) 19th Convention, Awana Porto Malai, Langkawi, 9-11 September, 2006.
Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S., & Facer, K. (2006). Social software and learning, in Opening Educ. Rep, Bristol, UK.
Roadrangka, V., Yeany, R. H., & Padila, M. J. (1983). The construction and validation of a group assessment of logical thinking (GALT). Paper presented at the meeting of the National
Association for Research in Science Teaching, Dallas, TX, USA. Tsai, W. T., Wu, L., Elston, J.& Chen, Y. N. (2011). Collaborative Learning Using Wiki Web
Sites for Computer Science Undergraduate Education: A Case Study. IEEE Trans. Edu., vol 54, no. 1, pp. 114-124. Verginis, I., Gogoulou, A., Gouli, E., Boubouka, M., & Grigoriadou, M. (2011). Enhancing
Learning in Introductory Computer Sciences Courses Through SCALE: An Empirical Study. IEEE Trans. Edu., vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 1-13. Wang, T. T., Su, X.H., Ma, P. J., Wang, Y. Y. & Wang, K. Q. (2011). Ability-training-oriented automated assessment in introductory programming course. Computers & Education, vol. 56, pp. 220–226.
White, G.L. & Sivitanides, M.P. (2002). A Theory of the Relationships between Cognitive
Requirements of Com-puter Programming Languages and Programmer's Cognitive Characteristics. Journal of Information Systems Education , 13(1), 59-66. Yaman, S. (2005). Effectiveness on Development of Logical Thinking Skills of Problem Based
Learning Skills in Science Teaching, Journal of Turkish Science Education, 2(1), 31 – 33.

Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-Cover

ISSN: 1302-6488
Başlangıç: 2000
Yayıncı: Anadolu Üniversitesi

Arşiv