Abstract
The knowledge of students’ errors and misconceptions is important because it helps instructors to understand the difficulties students experience when learning. This knowledge is also beneficial during the automation of the teaching process. Although studies on errors and misconceptions have been reported for several computer science courses, there is a gap in respect of Regular Expressions (REs), one of the topics taught in Formal Languages and Automata Theory. Regular Expressions are a vital part of the computer science curriculum and very useful in the software industry. Students, however, find REs difficult to learn and there is a need to understand the types of errors they make in order to build an intelligent tutoring system. Therefore, this research investigated the errors students make and misconceptions they can have when learning REs. A total of 393 students’ solutions to six RE questions were qualitatively analysed. Errors in students’ submissions can be syntax errors, slight errors or logical errors, while misconceptions include misunderstanding of the empty string and confusion of the Kleene star operator with the Kleene plus. The identification of these errors and the associated misconceptions will guide in automatic error detection and feedback generation on e-learning platforms and mobile devices on which students can practise on-the-go and get immediate feedback. The findings can also be used to adjust the teaching process in traditional classrooms to improve learning.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa Programme and the Postgraduate Merit Award of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The authors would like to appreciate the effort and support of the administrative officer of the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for her assistance during the data collection process. The authors also acknowledge the helpful comments given by the reviewers.
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Okuboyejo, O.Y., Ewert, S., Sanders, I. (2021). Goofs in the Class: Students’ Errors and Misconceptions When Learning Regular Expressions. In: Wells, G., Nxozi, M., Tait, B. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1518. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92858-2_4
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