Selby Markham

Does it help to have some programming experience before beginning a computing degree program

There is an intuitive perception that students with prior programming experience have an initial advantage in an introductory programming course, but that this advantage may decrease over the duration of the course if the style of programming is different from what the student has learnt previously. This paper reports on a study that indicates that students who have experience in at least one programming language at the beginning of an introductory programming course perform significantly better in the assessment than those with none, and that the more languages with which a student has experience, the better the performance tends to be.

Investigating Differences in Cheating Behaviours of IT Undergraduate and Graduate Students: The maturity and motivation factors

Within the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering of Monash University concerns have been raised about the prevalence of cheating amongst the IT students. Many isolated reports from staff of different cheating incidents collectively present a view of a problem that is widespread and multifaceted. Although indications are that these practices exist across all year levels in both undergraduate and graduate programmes, the actual extent of the problem, and whether any particular groups of students are more inclined to cheating behaviours, is difficult to gauge. Many studies have investigated undergraduate cheating; however, there have been very few studies of graduate students. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of studies of the cheating behaviour of information technology students. In some reporting of student cheating there is a tendency to take a general view of the problem, and preventative or educative measures to address this problem do not differentiate between undergraduate and graduate students. It is of concern that strategies that do not focus on attitudes or behaviours that are exhibited by a particular group are not as effective as they could be. The results of the study reported here show that there are differences between the undergraduate and graduate IT students in regard to their attitudes towards cheating and practice of cheating. The study hypothesises a relationship between maturity and motivation, and cheating behaviour. The possible reasons for this are explored and implications for the design of future education programmes are presented.

Web‐based learning environments: developing a framework for evaluation

With the widespread use of web‐based learning environments in the tertiary sector it is important to establish the usability of such environments for the target audience and their effectiveness in terms of meeting the educational objectives. However, a search of the literature has shown a scarcity of systematic evaluative studies of web‐based learning environments. Furthermore, the literature did not reveal a consistent starting position on appropriate methodologies with which to carry out such evaluations. This paper presents a general methodology for evaluating complex systems that is particularly appropriate for web‐based learning systems. Using what is called a trailing methodology (Finne et al., 1995), an evaluation was carried out of a web site that was used with student industrial experience projects. A key element in this evaluation was that the process was adaptive and collaborative; another was that it involved a team with expertise in evaluation, knowledge of the functional aspects of the web site and the educational purpose of the site. The evaluation process pointed to the importance of a flexible approach that utilizes the skills of the key stakeholders.

Is it okay to cheat? - the views of postgraduate students

This paper examines the attitudes of students in the Masters of Information Technology, Honours Degree in the Bachelor of Computing and Graduate Diploma of Computing at Monash University. Students were surveyed on the acceptability of a variety of scenarios involving cheating and on their knowledge of the occurrence of these scenarios. The survey found a strong consensus amongst the students as to what was acceptable or unacceptable practice. The paper then examines the significance of these results for educators aiming to prevent cheating amongst their students. The study reported is part of a larger study currently being undertaken in the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE) at Monash University.

You can lead a horse to water: how students really use pedagogical software

A great deal of effort is expended creating multimedia systems to help students learn. Some amount of effort is spent evaluating learning outcomes for students who have used these systems. Yet very little effort is spent examining how students actually use the software or how learning outcomes are related to system design. In a study involving direct observation of university students as they used pedagogical software, it was found that students develop their own strategies for learning with software and that these strategies are not necessarily those predicted by software designers and educators. Systematic field observation led to a more comprehensive view of how students were interacting with the software.

iCALT: Intelligent Context-Aware Learning and Teaching Environment

This paper presents a novel framework for obtaining real-time feedback from students as well as enabling the teacher to leverage such feedback and understand the context and situation of the students. We present the iCALT system and discuss its educational rationale, its system operation and usage as well results from trial of the system in a classroom setting and a seminar setting.

PIAVEE - a pedagogy-independent education environment

A platform independent agent-based virtual educational environment (PIAVEE) is described. PIAVEE is conceptualized as a lightweight, flexible environment that links educational resources through a virtual data base and that is supported by an intelligent delivery system. PIAVEE is implemented through an evolutionary process, whose initial focus is the development of and access to, the virtual data base. The paper describes the initial implementations, which focus on proof of concept and basic level functionality.