Incorporating Analogies and Worked Out Examples as Pedagogical Strategies in a Computer Science Tutoring System

Analogies and worked out examples are effective means of instruction in a wide variety of learning environments. However, the extent of their effectiveness in Computer Science (CS) education has not been fully explored. We extended our intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for CS data structures, ChiQat-Tutor, to incorporate worked out examples and analogy as teaching strategies. We compare three versions of the system: one that uses standard worked out examples, one that uses analogical worked out examples, and one that uses a pure analogical explanation with separate worked out examples. A study with 66 students showed that students using the standard worked out examples had greater learning gains than students in both analogy conditions. We also found that analogy can be less effective for students with higher prior knowledge. Additionally, we show that some interaction patterns highly correlate with student gains. Overall, the system implementation and results represent a step towards...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: SIGCSE
• Authors: Rachel Harsley, Nick E. Green, Mehrdad Alizadeh, Sabita Acharya, Davide Fossati, Barbara Di Eugenio, Omar AlZoubi
• Keywords: Education, SIGCSE 2016