Public Thesis Defense of Olivier Goletti - ICTEAM

Improving Tutors’ Practice by Integrating Explicit Instructional Programming Strategies in Introductory Programming Courses at University by Olivier Goletti

Mercredi 12 février 2025 à 10h00 - Auditoire A01 - Place des Sciences à 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve.

University introductory programming courses (CS1) often use tutors who are usually responsible for most of the students' interactions with the CS1 course. Tutors (UTAs for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants) generally have no specific didactic training in teaching programming. In this thesis, we explore how UTAs’ teaching practices can be improved by training them with dedicated evidence-based explicit instructional programming strategies. Moreover, we want to understand and characterise how UTAs use and adapt these strategies, what hinders and helps them.

Based on learning transfer processes and cognitive load theory, we selected four strategies: explicit tracing, subgoal learning, Parsons problems and explicit problem solving. We iterated on our interventions on the instructional design of the course's setup in three different years. We gradually increased the number of tutors participating in our study while refining our intervention up to a full integration of the subgoal learning throughout the course. We collected data on tutors' usage of the instructional strategies by mixing methods: semi-directed interviews, surveys and observations. The data was analysed using thematic analysis with both inductive and deductive coding, and the concept of fidelity of implementation.

We found that integrating subgoal learning throughout the course pushed UTAs to apply explicit instructional programming strategies in their practice. We also report on triggers for strategy uses by UTAs, adaptations made by UTAs and UTAs' fidelity of implementation of explicit tracing and subgoal learning. This work provides research-informed actionable advice to practitioners willing to integrate explicit instructional strategies in their own setup.

Jury members:

Prof. Kim Mens (UCLouvain), supervisor

Prof. Felienne Hermans (VU Amsterdam, The Nederlands), supervisor

Prof. Charles Pecheur (UCLouvain), chairperson

Prof. Mariane Frenay (UCLouvain), secretary

Prof. Efthymia Aivaloglou (TUDelft, The Nederlands)

Prof. Virginie März (UCLouvain)

Prof. Jan Vahrenhold (UMunster, Germany)

Pay attention: the public defense of Olivier Goletti will also take place in the form of a videoconference.