Comparing Traditional and Innovative Education Approaches in an Introductory Computer Science Course: A Case Study

Abstract

Innovative education focuses on developing skills such as creativity and critical thinking while enhancing the student experience. This study compared the effectiveness of a traditional versus an innovative teaching approach in an introductory computer science course. The innovative approach incorporated generative AI activities, where students had to use AI in order to build a specific report, practical elements, where pupils had to carry out individual coding projects, and team-based projects, where learners had to solve a collection of problems, alongside a traditional final exam. Hence, the research question was whether the use of an innovative learning paradigm would make a difference with respect to a traditional learning one. Results showed statistically significant improvements in both average grades (13.8%) and success rates (12%) using the innovative approach. Additionally, T-test results showed a statistically significant difference between the distribution of grades obtained with both approaches, thus meaning that the findings obtained are reliable and not due to change. Specifically, the outcome of a two-sided T-test led to a p-value of 0.013, which is lower than the significance value considered, namely 0.05. However, further research is needed to investigate the generalizability of these findings to diverse student populations and other computing courses.