Date of Award:

8-2018

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Engineering Education

Committee Chair(s)

Oenardi Lawanto (Committee Chair)

Committee

Oenardi Lawanto

Committee

Kurt Becker

Committee

Ning Fang

Committee

Wade Goodridge

Committee

Haitao Wang

Abstract

Developing a computer program is not an easy task. Studies reported that a large number of computer science students decided to change their major due to the extreme challenge in learning programming. Fortunately, studies also reported that learning various self-regulation strategies may help students to continue studying computer science. This study is interested in assessing students’ self-regulation, in specific their task understanding and its revision during programming endeavors. Task understanding is specifically selected because it affects the entire programming endeavor.

In this qualitative case study, two female and two male senior computer science students were voluntarily recruited as research participants. They were asked to think aloud while answering five programming problems. Before solving the problem, they had to explain their understanding of the task and after that answer some questions related to their problem-solving process. The participants’ problem-solving process were video and audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed.

This study found that the participants’ were capable of tailoring their problem-solving approach to the task types, including when understanding the tasks. Given enough time, the participants can understand the problem correctly. When the task is complicated, the participants will gradually update their understanding during the problem-solving endeavor. Some situations may have prevented the participants from understanding the task correctly, including overconfidence, being overwhelmed, utilizing an inappropriate presentation technique, or drawing knowledge from irrelevant experience. Last, the participants tended to be inexperienced in managing unfavorable outcomes.

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