Improving students performance in introductory programming subject: A case study

Abstract

The teaching of programming subjects has always been a great challenge to both the lecturers and students alike. For the lecturers, the challenge is in ensuring that the students understand the concepts taught, which is closely related to the increase in their interest towards the subject. For the students, the challenge is mainly to overcome the mind block that programming subject is difficult and to gain and retain understanding on the subject throughout the semester. It is believed that students achievement in programming subject is proportional to their interest in the subject and their interest increases as their understanding improves. It was often seen that students were excited and interested in the subject at the beginning of the semester, but were losing interest gradually as the topics covered became harder and more difficult to understand. Thus, it is important to ensure that students understanding is maintained right from the beginning of the class. To do this, a number of actions were taken, which included close monitoring of their attendance, individual attention to each student during lab sessions, rearrangement of syllabus in order to smoothen the transition from one topic to another and quantifiable distribution of final examination questions. Evaluation was performed at the end of each semester after the implementation of the changes. After three semesters, it can be concluded that the introduced changes enabled students to obtain better marks in their final examinations and fairer grades in the subject.