Understanding Problems through Assignment Presentation: A Replication Study

This study explores how a well-formed programming assignment can assist students in understanding a problem. To determine whether the presentation of a programming assignment might help CS1 students better understand the problem, we perform a comparable replication study using Soloway’s Rainfall Problem. This study integrates scaffolding treatments from prior studies using the Rainfall Problem into a theoretical assignment design pattern, to form a new presentation context. A survey was used to gain insight into how students perceived the presentation helped them understand the problem and potentially helped them solve the programming tasks. Results from the study show plan composition and natural language translation a challenge, but students appreciate the additional guidance from the assignment presentation in the form of hints and bullet points formatting to identify tasks. From the results, we are considering these scaffolding treatments and assignment presentation for future CS1 programming assignments.