Understanding and Analysing Novice Programmer Interactions in a Facebook Programming Group

This paper presents an analysis of first year programming student (novice programmer) messages posted on a Facebook Programming Group created to support the learning of programming by increasing novice to novice interactions anywhere, anytime. The captured messages are anonymized and analysed with a view to exploring the extent to which Facebook groups have supported the learning of programming, as well as to identify struggles and challenges faced by learners who use the environments. The results of our analysis show that interactions on Facebook groups can lead to social learning and can encourage engagement with learning. The Facebook groups are used effectively by novices to solve significant problems that would not have been discussed in their respective learning management systems. Our findings highlight some interesting problems faced by novice programmers and include useful learning analytics of novice programmer interactions within these groups.