How do First year Students Learn C programming in Bhutan? How it was developed? Authors: Phurpa Tshering, Royal University Of Bhutan Dekar Lhamo, Royal university of Bhutan Yu Lu, Uppsala University , Tongji University, China Anders Berglund, Uppsala University hug LaTiCE 2017

About Authors hug LaTiCE 2017

Background Founded 2003 Approx. 600 students College being young and small and is also the college in the country offering abachelor engineering in IT .Above all , department of IT being establishedin 2010, only few bath of std had been graduated from this college Founded 2003 Approx. 600 students Started Department of Information Technology in 2010 Only college offering IT engineering Photo: College of Science and Technology, Bhutan hug LaTiCE 2017

Introduction Learning programming among novice students is world wide concern. The study explores the Bhutanese students learning practices. Learning programming is a world wide concern f among the novice students hug LaTiCE 2017

How do first year IT students in Bhutan learn C programming ? Research Question 1. What can we say about what IT students learn in C programming? How do first year IT students in Bhutan learn C programming ? 1. How they do /we cant say that we have answered the question. I think we have tackled the study and have indications. We have learned more but we really have not answered the questions. 2. How do students go about to learn C programming? hug LaTiCE 2017

Setting of the Study First year IT students of CST, Royal University Bhutan. Students have to do three exams in this course. Data collected after first two exams of full mark 10 with pass mark of 4. We would have done after three exams but by the time hug LaTiCE 2017

Methodology Web-based online questionnaire was sent to first IT students of CST. 21 of 35 students have responded. Types of Data Scores of two exams. Data from closed questions. Data from open questions. We do have a good answer to our study with good number of students answering to it. hug LaTiCE 2017

Graph showing exam scores of two exam. Those who did well in first did well in second. Some with more IT knowledege. A9 and A8 hug LaTiCE 2017

Graph showing individual students’ time spent in group, coding alone and watching. hug LaTiCE 2017

Ways to prepare for exam 8 hug LaTiCE 2017

Ways of learning during the course: Category I: Learning C programming from materials such as notes, slides given by teacher from lecture. A7:I learn through browsing and through sir’s demo on programming and theories that has been prepared by sir in ppt. Category II: Understanding the theory and then practice by coding. A16: First getting concept of theory and applying practically. hug LaTiCE 2017

Ways of learning during the course: Category III: Seeking help from friends or through Internet. Category IV: Learning C programming by heart. A20: I memorized the code which are difficult to understand. hug LaTiCE 2017

Students understanding of what C programming is: Category I: Defining C programming as a solution for solving problems. A20: It is a program that we design using programming language to perform any kind of work faster easier and accurately and also safely. Category II: Defining C programming as something that deals with computer language and code. Category III: Defining C programming as code to develop software. A3: Computer programming used for developing software application. hug LaTiCE 2017

Insights Students with good scores spend more time in group. Students with low marks spend more time watching. Reading theory and doing coding is major way. Learning programming by heart seems to be important for Bhutanese students. hug LaTiCE 2017

Discussion There are very few studies on Bhutanese students’ learning. We believe this is the first study on Bhutanese IT students. Bhutanese students are highly depended on the teachers and their slides. We hope this study may support teachers in helping students better learning. hug LaTiCE 2017

Bhutan hug LaTiCE 2017

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