Pedagogical Explanation Methods of Teaching Matrix Programming Operations: Effects on Students’ Achievements in IPCs

Despite the fact that introductory programming courses (IPCs) are taught at universities for more than thirty years, students still find computer programming very difficult to learn. Programming pedagogy deals with the methods and principles of teaching and learning computer programming. The programming pedagogical approaches that have been proposed to increase the efficiency of teaching and learning computer programming mostly focus on the tools, paradigms, programming languages and environments used in IPCs. To increase significantly the students’ success rates in IPCs, these approaches should be complemented with pedagogical explanation (PE) methods. This research is focused on a PE method of teaching sequential search of a matrix row (SSMR). The research was designed as experimental study with pretest-posttest control group model, involving students of Computer Engineering department Izmir University. While the experimental group was subjected to a pedagogical explanation method, a traditional explanation method was applied in the control group. To collect the research data, an achievement pretest, posttest and a questionnaire were developed and applied. The research findings showed the effectiveness of teaching SSMR by using a PE method. This method positively influenced students’ level of topic comprehension, which consequently improved their achievements. In order for students to understand better the other matrix programming operations, similar PE methods should be developed and used in IPCs. On a more general level, the results of this research suggested that PE methods should be developed and used for other topics that students usually find difficult to understand in IPCs. Using these methods can be a very important factor in significantly increasing students’ success in IPCs.