Programmer Education

Computer programming is one of the courses that students often view as boring and difficult. Computer science education is a relatively new discipline compare to other ones. Before researchers started to realize the importance of computer science education, much of effort was put into the improvement of new speed and technique and computer programming was regard as a job for professional. With personal computer become more affordable and prevalent, most major colleges and universities offer computer programming courses from basic to advance to meet industry demand. Many researchers argued that we should view the process of learning to program as a method of developing intellectual and thinking skills. (Bork, 1981; Nickerson, 1982; Papert, 1980) However, computer programming is not a simple task that can be mastered in a short period (Feldgen & Clua, 2004; Jenkins, 2001). It is a cognitive task that has high complexity. (Letovsky, 1986) Previous research studies found that students lost interest after taking a basic computer programming course. (McKinney & Denton, 2004) One of the reasons is the novice programmer does not have the required cognitive skills on which the basic computer programming schemas are built when he/she first learn to program computer software. (Hoc, 1988; Kahney, 1988; Perkins & Martin, 1986)

One solution is to provide more motivating and enjoyable learning environment so learners will remain on the course longer and, therefore, have better chance to develop essential cognitive skills. Previous research studies (Chang, Yang, Chan, & Yu, 2003; Schwabe & Goth, 2005) found that educational computer games were great motivational tools in teaching learners in different areas. Another study (Martens, Gulikers, & Bastiaens, 2004) found that students with higher intrinsic motivation outperformed those with lower intrinsic motivation. Because computer games have attributes such as challenging, fantasy, and curiosity (Malone, 1980) it makes learning fun if the computer games were designed with specific instructional goals and could provide immediately feedback.

The purpose of this research was to compare two different supplemental instruction delivery methods’ influence to learners’ intrinsic motivation. One method was using a quiz program which randomly selected quizzes from the quiz bank and presented to learners as a way of practicing what they had learned in the classroom. The other method was using an educational computer game to present same set of quizzes to learners. The research study was designed to compare their effect on subject’s intrinsic motivation.