BRIDGES is a software framework for creating engaging assignments for required
courses such as data structures and algorithms. It provides students with a simplified
API that populates their own data structure implementations with live and real-world
data, and provides the ability for students to easily visualize the data structures they
create as part of routine classroom exercises. The objective is to use the infrastructure
to promote a better understanding of the data structure and its underlying algorithms.
This report describes the BRIDGES infrastructure and provides evaluation data collected
over the first five years of the project. In the first 2 years, as we were developing
the BRIDGES projects, our focus was on gathering data to assess whether the addition
of the BRIDGES exercises had an effect on student retention of core concepts
in data structures; and throughout the 5-year duration of the project, student interest
and faculty feedback were collected online and anonymously. A mixed method design
was used to evaluate the project impact. A quasiexperimental design compared student
cohorts who were enrolled in comparable course sections that used BRIDGES
with those that did not. Qualitative and quantitative measures were developed and
used together with course grades and grade point averages. Interest and relevance
in BRIDGES programming assignments was assessed with additional survey data
from students and instructors. Results showed that students involved in BRIDGES
projects demonstrated larger gains in knowledge of data structures compared to students
enrolled in comparable course sections, as well as long-term benefits in their
performance in four follow-on required courses. Survey responses indicated that some
investment of time was needed to use BRIDGES, but the extra efforts were associated
with several notable outcomes. Students and instructors had positive perceptions of the
value of engaging in BRIDGES projects. BRIDGES can become a tool to get students
more engaged in critical foundational courses, demonstrating relevance and context
to today’s computational challenges.
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This content will become publicly available on October 10, 2024
BRIDGES: Real World Data, Assignments and Visualizations To Engage and Motivate CS Majors
BRIDGES is a software framework for creating engaging assignments for required courses such as data structures and algorithms. It provides students with a simplified API that populates their own data structure implementations with live and real-world data, and provides the ability for students to easily visualize the data structures they create as part of routine classroom exercises. The objective is to use the infrastructure to promote a better understanding of the data structure and its underlying algorithms. This report describes the BRIDGES infrastructure and provides evaluation data col- lected over the first five years of the project. In the first 2 years, as we were developing the BRIDGES projects, our focus was on gathering data to assess whether the addi- tion of the BRIDGES exercises had an effect on student retention of core concepts in data structures; and throughout the 5-year duration of the project, student interest and faculty feedback were collected online and anonymously. A mixed method design was used to evaluate the project impact. A quasiexperimental design compared stu- dent cohorts who were enrolled in comparable course sections that used BRIDGES with those that did not. Qualitative and quantitative measures were developed and used together with course grades and grade point averages. Interest and relevance in BRIDGES programming assignments was assessed with additional survey data from students and instructors. Results showed that students involved in BRIDGES projects demonstrated larger gains in knowledge of data structures compared to stu- dents enrolled in comparable course sections, as well as long-term benefits in their performance in four follow-on required courses. Survey responses indicated that some investment of time was needed to use BRIDGES, but the extra efforts were associated with several notable outcomes. Students and instructors had positive perceptions of the value of engaging in BRIDGES projects. BRIDGES can become a tool to get students more engaged in critical foundational courses, demonstrating relevance and context to today’s computational challenges.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2142381
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10487350
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Education and information technologies
- ISSN:
- 1360-2357
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- ["Real-world data","Data structures","Algorithms","Visualization","Engagement","Programming assignments"]
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: N/A Other: PDF
- Size(s):
- ["N\/A"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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