Classroom Versus Screencast for Native Language Learners: Effect of Medium of Instruction on Knowledge of Programming.

ABSTRACTStudents, who study in their native language in K-12 and go on to do their undergraduate education in English, have difficulty in acquiring programming knowledge. Solutions targeted towards improving their English proficiency take time, while those that continue with native language in the classroom limit the students' ability to compete in a global market. Another solution could be the use of video-based instructional material to empower a student for self-paced learning. In this paper, we present a comparative study of classroom instruction versus self-paced screencasts for native language learners' acquisition of programming concepts. We conducted four introductory programming workshops, each of six days duration. Two workshops were classroom based, one having Hindi (native language) as the medium of instruction and other in English. Two other workshops were screencast based, again one in Hindi and one in English. We measured differences between the groups using a post-test, across different content types such as fact, concepts and process. We found that when medium of instruction is different from language of K-12 instruction, there is an adverse impact on learning. However, when self-paced screencast is used instead of classroom environment, there is a statistically significant improvement in performance. Our work informs the choice of MoI and choice of environment for native language learners.