Assessing cognitive enhancements in introductory programming through online collaborative learning system

The objectives of this study are i) to assess the students' cognitive enhancements, specifically in logical thinking skills in introductory programming via Online Collaborative Learning System (OCLS) and ii) to identify the students' cognitive levels in their early stage in learning programming via online platform. To achieve this, forty Diploma in Computer Science students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Perlis, Malaysia have taken part in this study, where they were asked to take pre and post-tests of logical thinking using the online Group Assessment Logical Thinking (GALT) test. Ten collaborative groups were then formed based from the pre-test results where they need to collaborate online in order to solve programming questions that have been constructed based on Bloom's Taxonomy Cognitive domain via OCLS. OCLS was used as the technology mediator to stimulate group collaboration, discussion and problem-solving activities, thus acted as intervention mechanism in helping to enhance the students' logical thinking skills. The results have shown positive cognitive enhancements with paired samples t-test analysis were significant at p-value<;0.05 for both individuals and groups' logical thinking skills. Meanwhile, the cognitive levels identified for the beginners in programming are the Application and Analysis.