Effects of digital learning on students' learning achievement in learning computer programming

Abstract

© The Authors, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Computer programming is one of the major courses that students in the department of Modern Management and Information Technology learn. Learning to program in any language such as PHP is not an easy task, and programming lecturers are aware of the numerous problems that arise during a class. Therefore, in this study, digital learning is proposed for helping students to reduce their anxiety and improve their learning achievements in learning programming. To evaluate the learning achievement of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted on a second-year undergraduate student in a web programming course. The students were divided into an experimental group (n=27) and control group (n=27). The students in both groups started by taking a pre-test to measure their prior knowledge of PHP programming, followed by a questionnaire about their computer profile. The students in the control group participated in a conventional learning support system, whereas those in the experimental group learned with the newly suggested system. After finishing the learning activities, the students were evaluated in their learning achievement and then participated in a questionnaire. The results of the experiment showed that the proposed digital learning effectively increased the students’ learning achievement and promoted positive perception towards the system.