Helping To Provide Adaptive Feedback To Novice Programmers: A Framework To Assist The Teachers

In programming problem-solving, feedback plays a relevant role in the teaching-learning process, which is considered an essential element of scaffolding for the student's assistance. In introductory programming courses, teachers have often provided feedback, specifically by teaching assistants (TAs). However, sometimes, those TAs do not have a sufficient and appropriate understanding of the relevant aspects of adaptive feedback. To mitigate this issue, we constructed a framework for guiding and understanding concepts on adaptive and online feedback, providing TAs with an overview of the feedback resources in problem-solving by novice programmers, not only focusing on identifying mistakes in problem solutions but addressing another kind of educational assistance. To this end, we developed the framework based on investments in two main stages: (1) conception and (2) brainstorming and evolution. The conception stage, which gave rise to the first version of the framework, included an ad hoc literature review. Hence, we brainstormed with introductory programming teachers to analyze the framework regarding coverage and its potential to enable the teaching assistants to provide adaptive feedback. Thus we evolved the framework into one more version, resulting in categories and subcategories encompassing different approaches and resources. The knowledge represented in the proposed framework is helpful to be presented to TAs, who should use it to guide their pedagogical decision-making process regarding adaptive feedback in synthesis and analysis