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Project Based Learning with Peer Assessment in an Introductory

Programming Course

Article in International Journal of Information and Education Technology · May 2021

DOI: 10.18178/ijiet.2021.11.7.1532

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 International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 11, No. 7, July 2021

Project Based Learning with Peer Assessment in an

Introductory Programming Course
Sónia Rolland Sobral

 motivators or increasing extrinsic motivators, or any

Abstract—Introductory programming course traditionally combination of these three, as appropriate in the course
have higher rates of failures and dropouts. Teachers and context. There are several studies that prove the advantages
researchers have to develop strategies to combat this problem. and motivation created in students with the use of active
This article reports an experience on the first semester of a
degree in computer science and the use of Project Based
methodologies as opposed to with passive learning in large
Learning for two projects with groups of three students. With classes, such as Technology-Enabled Active Learning
this methodology, independence and self-study are created in (TEAL) [11]. In programming courses, instructional
the students, accompanying the subjects taught in classes with activities encourage students to learn how to program by
works related to real life. Since peer assessment is used in part doing programming and thinking about what they are doing.
of the classification of each project, the distribution of students Active learning involves students doing things and
by the groups was made by the teacher, who used as criteria for
ordering said groups attendance in class for the first project
thinking about the things they are doing [12]. It is a process
and grade in the first test for the second project. The first which involves having students engage in some activity that
project was submitted and presented by 95% of the students forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using
and the second project was only completed by 44% of the those ideas, keeping students mentally, and often physically,
students who mostly correspond to the best grades on the first active in their learning through activities that involve them
test. 93% of the students who passed the course presented both gathering information, thinking and problem solving [13].
projects. Most of the students who submitted the papers found
Active learning active learning presupposes the concept of
this to be an excellent strategy. It is concluded that the project is
a way to improve and develop the skills of motivated students Student-Centered Instruction (SCI), often defined by
but that others have a lot of difficulty or even reluctance to contrasting them with traditional instructional approaches
follow. characterized by greater teacher direction [14]. SCI is an
instructional approach in which students influence the
Index Terms—Project based learning, introduction to content, activities, materials, and pace of learning. This
programming, motivation, active learning methodologies, peer learning model places the student (learner) in the center of the
assessment.
learning process. The instructor provides students with
opportunities to learn independently and from one another
I. INTRODUCTION and coaches them in the skills they need effectively [13]. A
variety of approaches fit beneath the umbrella of
Teaching programming to students who do it for the first student-centered learning, including case-based learning,
time is a task that is both complicated and challenging. goal-based scenarios, learning by design, project-based
Programming can be considered an art [1], a science [2], a learning and problem-based learning [14].
discipline [3] or even the science of abstraction [4]. However, Project-based learning is a comprehensive approach to
using a programming language is no more than a method for classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage
the programmer to communicate instructions to the computer. students in investigation of authentic problems. Students are
Some say that programming is very difficult [5], [6] while for
responsible for both the questions and the answers to such
others it may be easy [7]. Introductory programming courses
problems [15]. This form of learning allows students to
traditionally have high drop-out and failure rates [8].
experiment and improve their skills by developing medium
Teachers and researchers have to develop strategies to
sized projects in contrast to small programs as is usual in
combat this problem, especially in an attempt to motivate,
courses of this type. The experience reported on this article
attract and engage students. Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
uses two projects with groups of three students. The
[9] differentiates motivator factors from hygiene factors: the
constitution of the groups was not maintained from the first to
first are intrinsic to the job (achievement, recognition for
achievement, the work, responsibility, and growth or the second project. With this methodology, independence
advancement) and hygiene factors are extrinsic to the job and and self-study are created in the students, accompanying the
include company policy and administration, supervision, subjects taught in classes with works related to real life.
interpersonal relationships, salary, status, and security. The The elements of the group were responsible for the final
Three-Motivator Theory [10] indicate that course success can product, however the teacher was indirectly following the
be improved by removing demotivators, increasing intrinsic work of the groups. One of the forms of control was the use
of peer evaluation done anonymously by each member of the
group. Peer assessment using marks, grades, and tests have
shown positive formative effects on student achievement and
Manuscript received December 26, 2020; revised March 3, 2021. attitudes [16]. Since peer assessment is used in part of the
Sónia Rolland Sobral is with REMIT, Portugal (e-mail: [email protected]).

doi: 10.18178/ijiet.2021.11.7.1532 337

 International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 11, No. 7, July 2021

classification of each project, the distribution of students by the equivalent of project 2 at the beginning of the week 11.
the groups was made by the teacher, who used as criteria for
C. Demographics of Participants
ordering said groups attendance in class for the first project
and grade in the first test for the second project. 37 students responded to an initial survey: five female
This article is divided into four parts: the course (14%) and 32 male (86%). The average age was 19.2 years
characterization: program, schedule, evaluation and and the most frequent age was 18 years. The maximum age
demographics of participants; characterization of the two was 34 and the minimum was 18, with 81% of the students
projects: aims, rules and surveys; the results and the being 18, 19 or 20 years old. 19 students had a computer
discussion as well as final conclusions. science course in secondary education: 14 attended computer
applications B in the 12th year, four Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) in the 9th year and a
II. THE INTRODUCTORY PROGRAMMING COURSE Web Design in the 10th, 11th and 12th years. 19 students
replied that they had some programming knowledge, having
A. Program referred to Java, JavaScript, C #, C, Pascal, HTML and CSS,
The course is part of a university degree in Computer Visual Basic and Python.
Science. It is taught in the first semester and constitutes the
students' first contact with computer thinking and a
programming language. In this course of propaedeutic nature, III. TWO PROJECTS
a student should, among other skills to be achieved, be able to
A. Aims and Rules
develop and implement computer solutions for problem
solving, that is, to learn correctly and effectively how to Group work is a way to get students to put into practice in a
program. Before elaborating a program, the student must structured way what they have been learning in the curricular
know how to understand the problem, how to develop units. In this case there will be two phases of work: one that
strategies for the precise problem he intends to solve with the ends in the middle of the semester and another that ends with
machine, and how to establish methods for the detailed and the end of classes.
rigorous description of solutions that can be implemented on In the proposed work, groups of three elements are created
a computer. The programming language chosen was C. 52 by the professor. As the work model includes peer group
students were enrolled and divided into two practical classes. assessment, it was decided not to allow students to form
However, 12 students never attended any theoretical or groups, as this task is often done only out of friendship,
practical classes. which would jeopardize a fair assessment of colleagues. For
Classroom classes are divided into theoretical and practical the constitution of working groups in the first phase, an
laboratory classes, respectively with 2 hours and 4 hours per attendance sheet was used in the course: students were
week. The planned program includes Computer Thinking ordered according to their number of attendance in the first
using Top-Down and Algorithms; Conditional structures; C three weeks of classes. The distribution of students by groups
Programming Language; Cycles; Functions and Procedures; was presented in the fourth week of the semester. The
Arrays: one dimension and several; Array ordering and students were given a statement that included the subject
search; Record arrays (1 to 1, 1 to n and n to n); taught until half of the semester. 13 groups were created: 11
Alphanumeric and frequency of sub-alphanumeric. of the groups with three students and two groups with two
students. For the constitution of working groups in the
B. Evaluation second phase, the grade sheet students of the firs test was
The evaluation method of the discipline is based on a used: students were ordered according to their test grade 1.
continuous evaluation model with four elements of The distribution of students by groups was presented in the
evaluation and attendance requirement above 60% according tenth week of the semester. The students were given a
to the formula: Grade = Test1 * 40% + Test2 * 40% + statement that included the material to be taught until the end
Project1 * 10% + Project2 * 10%. Where Test1 is the test of the semester. 12 groups were created with three students
score taken in the eight week of classes, Test2 is the test score each.
taken in the last week of classes of the semester. Project1 is In each of the phases of the group work, two surveys are
the grade given to the student in the project presented in the answered by each element, where each of the elements
eight week of classes and Project2 is the grade assigned to the evaluates their peers. The grade of each of the phases
student in the project presented in the last week of classes in assigned by the teacher is corrected by the average of the
the semester. The tests foresee the use of computers and grades assigned by the peers of each of the members of the
paper and have an expected duration of 90 minutes with 15 group, provided that at least two other members of the group
minutes of tolerance. For all other times (supplementary and answer the surveys. The product of each of the two phases of
special seasons) the grade is based of an exam using a the work is submitted into MOODLE by the project leader.
computer and paper. The exam is expected to last 120 The product consists of a program in language C and a
minutes with a 15-minute tolerance. document with an explanation of the program: scheme,
Considering 14 school weeks, the first test was scheduled algorithm and / or text. Presentation is mandatory. The
for the beginning of week 8 and the second test for the end of project statement provided that each group would choose a
week 14. The statement and constitution of the groups of different type of store and would simulate the various
project 1 was delivered at the beginning of the 4th week and activities of that business. The choices in the first project

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 International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 11, No. 7, July 2021

were travel agency, school supplies, DIY store, cinema, disco, and 6, with values greater than 4.5 (Fig. 2).
pharmacy, ice cream shop, jewelry, restaurant, shoe store, The most frequent answer to the questions was 5
supermarket, technology store and pet store. (excellent), except for question 1 and 2 in the second phase of
project which was 4 (Fig. 3).
B. Surveys
Only 7 students wrote comments at the end of the Pa2
The following Fig. 1 outlines the surveys, documents and survey, 3 to say that they liked the work, 4 to show
C programs that were to be submitted by students each week, displeasure in relation to the group: “We did a good job,
and also indicates the weeks for which the two tests are despite having some difficulties. We should have organized
scheduled: ourselves better”; “The group runs well. There is a good
 Zero is the initial survey to characterize students; interaction”; “A very interesting work, which completely
 P1a, P1b, P2a and P2b are the surveys for the beginning helps to better understand the concepts taught and practiced
and end of each of the two project phases; in class”. “I enjoyed doing the job and helped me develop
 Doc1a, Doc1b, Doc2a and Doc2b are the beginning and programming skills. But I had some complications with the
end documents for each of the two project phases; group because we were only two and my colleague had some
 C1 and C2 are the C programs at the end of the first and difficulties in the matter, which meant that I had to do a lot of
second phases of the project; the work alone.”, “I liked the work but I didn't get along with
 Test 1 and Test 2 are the tests from the beginning of the 8th my partner.”, “We have no 3rd element”, “The work was all
week and the end of the 14th week. done by {} and by me”. To the P2b survey, only 4 made final
comments, all to refer to their group colleagues: “We divided
everything into parts and everyone did their part. The group
worked well.”, “I did the work myself without the help of any
colleagues.”, “None of the group members bothered to come
Fig. 1. Weekly schedule of surveys, documents, C programs and tests. to me and ask about the job. * only worried about it when it
was 2 or 3 days before delivery, but offered no help.” and “It
Each student had to answer a survey at the beginning of was the job that I worked more for”.
each phase of the project and another one on the delivery day.
The surveys were anonymous but included the students’
number. 13 questions were answered on a scale of 0 to 5,
"nothing" to "excellent" respectively. There was a final open
question for comments and suggestions. The 13 questions
were:
1) I am enjoying this group work
2) I am enjoying working with this group
3) I feel that I improve my skills in the course because of this
group work
4) 4. I feel that I improve my group work skills because of
this group work
5) My presence at group meetings (face-to-face, skype ...) Fig. 2. Questions, average.
6) My work in group work until today At the beginning of the first project there were 37 students
7) Self-assessment from day 1 to today regarding group and 35 students were presented. In the second part of the
work project there were 36 students at the beginning and 16
[Colleague A; B] students at the end. In the latter case, two groups ended with
A. Colleague name
just one student, five of the groups did not show any students.
8&11. My colleague's attendance at group meetings
(face-to-face, skype ...) TABLE I: GROUPS: STUDENTS NºINITIAL (I1), AT THE END (IN), TEACHER
9&12. My colleague's work on group work GRADE (TG) AND PEERS CLASSIFICATION (C1, C2 AND C3)
10&13. My colleague's assessment of group work
Observations and suggestions.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

P1a survey was answered by 34 students, P1b by 35, P2a
by 28 and P2b was answered by 20 students. Although the
distribution of groups in the first part of the project foresees
37 students and the second part of the project has 36 students,
the presentations were made by 36 and 16 students,
respectively.
The averages dropped in almost all questions, with Pa1>
Pa2> Pb1> Pb2. This did not happen only in questions 3, 5
and 6. The best averages of answers were those of questions 5

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 International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 11, No. 7, July 2021

Fig. 3. Answers to questions by project phase.

In the Table I we see that initially in project 1 there were 11 It was found that a large part of the students who scored low
groups of 3 students and 2 groups of 2 students (i1). There in the first test did not do the second project: the reasons may
were presentations for the 13 groups, 9 with 3 students and 4 be lack of necessary knowledge, student strategy or dropping
with 2 students (in). In project 2 there were 12 groups of 3 out of the course.
students (i1). There were presentations for the 7 groups, four The answers to the questionnaire show that most students
with 3 students, one with 2 students and two ended with just really liked the project, almost always classifying each of the
one student (in). items asked as excellent. However, it was found that the
The teacher's assessment (0 to 5) was decreasing in the average of responses was almost always decreasing as the
case of the first project (in which students were grouped by semester progressed.
class attendance) (Tg). In the case of the second project, there There were many problems with working groups, which is
was no significant difference in relation to the grades reflected in the evaluations attributed to their peers. These
attributed by the teacher to each of the groups. Columns C1, ratings were better in the first part of the project than in the
C2 and C3 show the evaluation of the pairs in a decreasing second.
way. These assessments were generally better for project 1 These evaluations were not always reflected in what
than for project 2. happened within the groups: sometimes there were situations
Of the 27 students who attended any test (test1 + test2 or in which the students felt that they had no support from
appeal exam), 15 passed and 12 failed. Of the 15 that were colleagues and evaluated those same colleagues with positive
approved, 14 presented themselves in the two phases of the grades.
project (P1 and P2). Of the 12 that failed, only 2 worked on This group work was very beneficial for students who are
the second project. None of the 10 students who missed the motivated and intend to succeed in the course, but not for
exams submitted and presented the second phase of the other students who do not work daily or who have difficulties
project (Table II). in obtaining the skills necessary to succeed in a course of this
type.
TABLE II: FINAL RESULTS A group project like the one proposed further widens the
Final Result n P1 P2
gap between students who pass and fail or drop out.
Approved 15 14 14
Disapproved 12 12 2
Missed 10 9 0 CONFLICT OF INTEREST
This study was carried out without a conflict of interest.
V. CONCLUSIONS
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
The relative value of the project’s evaluation was
The author did a literature review, defined the
relatively small (10% of the final grade) and the work grade
methodology, research and data treatment, data analysis and
would not be considered for the time of appeal. We cannot
conclusions, having written the entire document.
consider that the grade contributed much to the formula for
calculating the grades. But from the results we can see that 14
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