MSc Defence: Justin Carvalho

Title: The Design of an Educationally Beneficial Immediate Feedback System

Abstract:

Student learning is positively affected by the quality, and timeliness of feedback they receive on their assignments and homework. Unfortunately, as class sizes increase, instructors find it increasingly difficult to produce meaningful feedback for students in a timely fashion. To maintain an environment in which a student can continue to receive beneficial feedback, an alternate scalable method of providing feedback needs to be established. This document presents the design of a system capable of providing automated feedback to students on their work immediately after it is requested. A prototype of the design that produces feedback on C programs was developed, and provided to computer science students. An analysis of the usage of the system, and the student work submitted to it shows the design can produce feedback that students find valuable, improves the learning experience, and improves programming ability.  The positive results suggest that further research should be conducted.

Chair: Dr. Fei Song
Advisor: Dr. Judi McCuaig
Advisory Committee Member:  Dr. Dan Gillis
Non-Advisory Committee Member: Dr. Andrew Hamilton-Wright