A smart eye-tracking feedback scaffolding approach to improving students' learning self-efficacy and performance in a C programming course

Abstract

While computer science is crucial to today's world, the course requirements remain high and learners' self-efficacy remains low. This study applied eye-tracking devices to instantly identify learners' difficulties and provide them with tips and help them enhance their self-efficacy. The influence of the eye-tracking scaffolding system on students' self-efficacy and performance for learning the C programming language was investigated. Seventy-seven senior high school participants were randomly assigned to four groups: control, peer-scaffolding, eye-tracking-scaffolding, and mixed-scaffolding. A self-efficacy scale, a learning test, and an open-ended questionnaire were the research instruments. The results show that the self-efficacy of the eye-tracking-scaffolding group was significantly higher than the other three groups. In addition, the self-efficacy of the peer-scaffolding group was significantly higher than the control and mixed-scaffolding groups. However, no significant differences were found in learning performance between groups. The findings suggest that eye-tracking scaffolding and peer scaffolding methods can be applied to learning the C programming language, as they significantly enhanced learners' self-efficacy. Furthermore, the results suggest that several simultaneous types of scaffolding tend to reduce the effectiveness of the scaffolding systems through media-multitasking. Therefore, future teaching practice and research should avoid applying several types of scaffolding simultaneously.