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Programming is reported as a complex and hard area of study for most novice programmers (Iqbal et. al, 2021). Novices have to focus on different skills such as problem analysis and solving, program design, and debugging etc. at the same time. On the other side, most of the programming 1 course focuses more on programming knowledge (syntax and semantics) (Sohail et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2021; Iqbal & Harsh, 2013; Webster, 1994; Ala-Mutka, 2004). Consequently, high attrition rates (drop out and failure) are reported in the programming 1 courses (Zingaro, 2015; Guzdial & Soloway, 2002; Watson & Li, 2014; Lahtinen et al., 2005; Yadin, 2011; Sykes, 2007). Therefore, it is important to focus on different skills in the programming 1 course. Different interventions such as chatbot, games, intelligent tutoring system, M-learning, E-learning etc. are introduced in the programming 1 to focus on different skills.
Different supporting tools are prepared and offered in the programming courses to support novices in grasping difficult concepts of programming domain. ADRI Editor (Iqbal, 2016), BlueJ (Barnes & Kölling, 2003), Javy (Gómez-Martín et al, 2003), LEONARDO (Crescenzi et al, 2000) and Alice (Cooper et al, 2003) are few examples of such supporting tools in programming education. These supporting tools are categorized as simulation, visualization, example-based and reduced development environments (Gomez-Albarran, 2005). These supporting tools do not provide interactive environment for students’ queries. Moreover, they do not act as a virtual teaching assist for students. These limitations were addressed in this study by offering a chatbot in the programming 1 course.
This study prepared and introduced a chatbot in the programming 1 course. The programming 1 course is the first programming course offered to novice programmers in the IT department. The course covers basic programming topics such as algorithms, problem solving strategies, input/output, if statement, loops, arrays, and function. The chatbot emphasizes on problem solving skills, syntax and semantic of programming language, common programming syntax errors, course details, and programming semantics errors. Students can access information about most of the teaching topics in textual, audio and animation formats from the chatbot.
The remaining paper is presented as a number of sections. The next section is literature review and then research questions are listed. Brief information related to the chatbot is presented next which is followed by research methodology. The next section presents Results of the study which is followed by a discussion section. The last part of the paper presents the research outcomes.