On the efficacy of prerecorded lectures for teaching introductory programming

Smith, G. and Fidge, C.

Teaching introductory programming is a notoriously challenging problem in any information technology or computer science course. Failure and dropout rates are usually high, and many students seem unable to grasp the notion of solving problems algorithmically. Given contemporary students' fondness for multimedia styles of presentation, we conducted an experiment on the effectiveness of providing prerecorded mini-lectures in a first-year programming subject. Although we found only a weak quantitative correlation between students' use of the prerecorded material and their final grades, anecdotal feedback on the experiment was overwhelmingly positive, suggesting that students' perceptions of the subject were improved.

Cite as: Smith, G. and Fidge, C. (2008). On the efficacy of prerecorded lectures for teaching introductory programming. In Proc. Tenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2008), Wollongong, NSW, Australia. CRPIT, 78. Simon and Hamilton, M., Eds. ACS. 129-136.

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