Office Hours and Online Forum Engagement in Introductory CS Courses

This research full paper explores the connection between office hours use and online forum engagement in introductory computer science courses. Office hours (OH) and online question-and-answer (Q&A) forums provide a platform for students to interact with their classmates and instructors. We investigate the relationship between student engagement in an online discussion forum (Piazza) and utilization of office hours across 5 semesters of an introductory CS course. We explored the correlation between Piazza utilization and OH attendance, discerned disparities between in-person and online OH involvement, and analyzed the distinct approaches of men and women in engaging with course resources. We found that active Piazza users visit OH more than inactive Piazza users. More specifically, students who interact above average on Piazza in each metric observed - asks, answers, posts, and views - attend OH more than those who are below average in each metric. Additionally, students who attend OH at least once tend to post, ask, answer, and view posts on Piazza more frequently than those who have never attended OH. This indicates that above average help-seeking students on Piazza and in OH tend to engage with available resources more than those who did not seek help as often. This quantifies how often - and through which methods - students seek help. Based on prior research and our findings, we find it likely that students often begin by seeking answers on Piazza. If they find the response unsatisfactory, they then resort to OH for clarification. We also examined the modality of office hours, comparing in-person and online interactions; there is no significant statistical difference in the number of OH visits between those who attend virtually vs those who attend in person. However, online OH visits tended to take longer than in-person visits. In terms of the relationship between engagement and gender, our findings show that women visit OH more than men, both in person and online, and take longer in their OH visits. These findings emphasize the importance of course engagement resources in assisting with learning while also highlighting factors that affect engagement, such as gender, mode of engagement, and usage of other resources, giving instructors a better understanding of which populations tend to engage with specific course resources.