Enhancing academic achievement in an introductory computer programming course through the implementation of guided inquiry-based learning and teaching

Programming is an important course taught in higher education institutions as part of the curriculum of the undergraduate programmes in Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) disciplines. This paper emanates from a larger study which was carried out at a South African comprehensive university. Computer programming (often called programming) is the process of developing and implementing various sets of instructions to enable a computer to do one or more pre-planned task(s). There is general agreement in the literature that learning to program is a difficult task (Jenkins, 2002; Teague & Roe, 2008; Yang, Hwang, Yang, & Hwang, 2015; Malliarakis, Satratzemi, & Xinogalos, 2017). The paper presents the part of the study which sought to find the differences in academic achievement between students who were taught traditionally and those taught using a GIL (Guided Inquiry Learning) approach in learning computer programming. GIL is a type of inductive collaborative learning approach where students are presented with a challenge which challenges them to accomplish the desired learning outcomes in the process of responding to the posed challenge.

Commonly offered as a first-year, core course, introductory programming courses have an alarming failure rate (Bennedsen & Caspersen, 2007; Costa et al., 2017; Iqbal Malik & Coldwell-Neilson, 2017; Koulouri, Lauria, & Macredie, 2015; Malik & Coldwell-Neilson, 2017; Sheard & Hagan, 1998; Watson & Li, 2014). At the selected university the course is known as Development Software 1 (DEV1120). The Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) working group in 2001 assessed the programming ability of an international population of first-year computer science students from several universities (McCracken et al., 2001). According to this study, the majority of entry-level programming students found it difficult to grasp the fundamentals and foundation level programming concepts at their early stages of learning (programming), and they performed poorly on a set of common program-writing problems. Entry-level students often struggle initially to grasp and understand programming and this can lead to frustration and eventually, surrender (Horton & Craig, 2015; Petersen, Craig, Campbell, & Tafliovich, 2016; Shuhaidan, Hamilton & D'Souza, 2009).

The introductory programming course, DEV1120, is offered at entry-level of the three year programme: National Diploma: Information Technology (NDIT). Over the past several years this course has had an alarming failure rate. Since 2010, an average of 51.44% of students has been failing in this introductory programming subject. The assessment of this subject consists of four written tests of incremental difficulty and an end-of-year final examination. Average marks scored in these four tests is calculated to generate a student's year mark. The average year mark (termed in South Africa as Duly Performed mark - DP) averaged between 39.06 and 57.03 with an average of 46.51 for the past five years. Learners are not allowed to do the final examination should they fail to accumulate a minimum of 40% for their year mark (DP). Those who qualified for the final examination averaged a 53.51% examination mark for the past five years. This reflects the depth of the problem in that a great proportion of the students who enrol at this institution have very little or no prior knowledge of basic computer skills.

As alluded to by several researchers, difficulties in learning to program and the high failure rate in introductory programming modules are a global phenomenon and not unique to any specific sector of the population (Bennedsen & Caspersen, 2007; Horton & Craig, 2015; Watson & Li, 2014). Bennedson and Casperson (2007) also argue that low retention rates are often experienced in computer science schools and students' inability to learn programming has been cited as a major cause. Two large-scale global research studies conducted by ITiCSE working groups by McCracken et al. (2001) and Lister et al. (2004) tested entry-level university students' common program-writing problems. The first study assessed the programming ability of students by testing them on common program-writing problems and reported that students struggled to achieve an average of above 30% on their assessments. The second one assessed code-reading and tracing skills of entry-level students and reported that approximately 25% of the students were guessing the solutions. Using global data, Bennedsen and Caspersen (2007) reported that the failure rates in introductory program ming courses averaged about 33% and Watson and Li (2014) concurred by reporting a similar figure of 32%.