Teaching Systems Programming Through Incremental Complexity: A Two-Semester Evaluation

Sabbir Hosen Mamun, Beatriz M. Cardoso

ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 450–456, Toronto, Canada · ACM

Conference2023

Abstract

Introductory systems courses frequently overwhelm students by introducing pointers, memory management, and concurrency simultaneously. We describe a course redesign that introduces each concept in isolation using a sequence of small, self-contained projects. Evaluation across two semesters (n = 184) shows a 31% reduction in assignment failure rates and improved retention of pointer semantics on post-course assessments (Cohen's d = 0.74). A replication package including course materials and anonymised grade data is publicly available.

Cite this work

@inproceedings{Mamun2023Teaching,
  title = {Teaching Systems Programming Through Incremental Complexity: A Two-Semester Evaluation},
  author = {Sabbir Hosen Mamun and Beatriz M. Cardoso},
  year = {2023},
  booktitle = {ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education},
  pages = {450–456},
  address = {Toronto, Canada},
  publisher = {ACM},
  series = {SIGCSE TS '23},
  doi = {10.1145/3545945.3569781},
  abstract = {Introductory systems courses frequently overwhelm students by introducing pointers, memory management, and concurrency simultaneously. We describe a course redesign that introduces each concept in isolation using a sequence of small, self-contained projects. Evaluation across two semesters (n = 184) shows a 31% reduction in assignment failure rates and improved retention of pointer semantics on post-course assessments (Cohen's d = 0.74). A replication package including course materials and anonymised grade data is publicly available.},
}