Simulated Learners in Peers Assessment for Introductory Programming Courses.

Programming is one of the basic competences in computer science, despite its importance, it is easy to find students with difficulties to understand the concepts required to use this skill. Several researchers report that the impossibility to achieve a quick and effective feedback, is one of the motivators for the problematic scenario. The professor, even when helped by the TAs, is not able to perform the reviews quickly, for this activity requires a huge amount of time. Fast feedback is extremely important to enable the learning of any concept. Some researches suggest the use of peer assessment as a means of providing feedback. However, it is quite common that the feedback provided by peers is not adequate. In this paper, we propose the use of simulated learners in a peer assessment approach as part of the teaching and learning processes of programming. Currently a software tool is being developed to include the proposal described in this paper.