Knowledge Sequencing in Online Courses for Introductory Programming

In recent years there has been a move towards teaching programming outside of tertiary. Many comprehensive, interactive tools for introductory programming have been created to scaffold tasks and learning for a wide variety of learners. These online tools contain sequences of tasks that have been designed to scaffold the introductory steps of programming. Knowledge about how tasks are being sequenced within the domain of introductory programming for non-tertiary learners is proposed to be generated by systematically extracting and presenting information about tasks across a sample of these courses. There is wide variety in the amount of repetition and how tasks are sequenced in courses and it is believed that a systematic analysis of such courses will contribute to the wider field of introductory programming education. The outline for a methodology for sampling these courses and justification for doing so is detailed below. The poster will also present preliminary results from a sample of courses and tasks