Towards Contextualized Programming Education by Developing a Learnersourcing Workflow

Abstract

In response to the escalating demand for proficient programming skills in today's technological landscape, innovative educational strategies have emerged to mitigate the challenges inherent in mastering programming concepts. Contextualization, a pedagogical approach embedding learning within real-world contexts, has demonstrated efficacy in enhancing student engagement and understanding. However, its implementation in programming education encounters hurdles related to diverse student backgrounds and resource-intensive material preparation. To address these challenges, this paper proposes leveraging learnersourcing, a collaborative approach wherein students actively contribute to the creation of contextualized learning materials. Specifically, we investigate the viability of implementing a learnersourcing workflow in an advanced database programming class during the Spring semester of 2022 with a group of 23 students enrolled, where students are tasked with generating contextualized worked-out examples. The results reveal that students successfully incorporated diverse contexts into their WEs, demonstrating the potential of learnersourcing to enrich educational content. However, challenges such as vague problem descriptions and formatting errors were identified, emphasizing the need for structured support and guidance. Self-assessment ratings tended to overestimate clarity and educational value, while peer assessments exhibited variability among assessors. Ambiguities in evaluation criteria and limited granularity of rating scales contributed to inconsistencies in assessments. These findings underscore the importance of addressing challenges in learnersourcing implementation, including providing explicit guidance, scaffolding support, and integrating real-time feedback mechanisms. Additionally, efforts to enhance the reliability of self and peer assessments should consider standardization measures and clear evaluation criteria. Future research should explore alternative approaches to improve the validity and consistency of assessments in learnersourcing contexts.