Using video tutorials in programming courses
Name
Maria Gaiduk
Abstract
Technological advances and widespread use of the internet in Estonia among young people and students have produced a basis to investigate the possibilities of new teaching methods more thoroughly. Recording lectures and using them as a teaching method is quite common throughout the Institute of Computer Science in University of Tartu. Meanwhile video tutorials are relatively new and unknown practice in the University.
The main objective of current thesis was to find out what video tutorials are and how to integrate them with existing programming courses. The first part of this thesis investigates the common practices of creating screencasts, to give an overview of the procedures and aspects that need to be considered, when producing video tutorials. This analysis can be used as a guideline for lecturers on how to make screencasts. The author reviews other research papers in order to evaluate the efficiency of using video as a means for teaching. Principally most of the studies concluded that using screencasts as learning materials had a positive impact on student grades, which could be an incentive for lecturers to use videos as teaching tools.
In the practical portion of this paper 15 video tutorials were composed for Introduction to Programming and Introductory to Programming II courses. Students were asked to respond to questionnaires that assessed the advantages and user satisfaction of using screencasts as study material. Also comparison of two video tutorials, with same content but with different quality, was conducted for establishing whether or not video quality influences the comprehension of presented subject. Results showed that video characteristics do not affect substantially the understanding of a given topic, though these are only initial results and a more thorough research should be carried out.
Graduation Thesis language
Estonian
Graduation Thesis type
Master - Information Technology
Supervisor(s)
Eno Tõnisson
Defence year
2013