The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of

Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future Software

Engineers

Tetiana A. Vakaliuk

1,2,3 a

, Oleksii V. Chyzhmotria

1 b

, Olena H. Chyzhmotria

1 c

Dmytro S. Antoniuk

1 d

, Mykhailo G. Medvediev

4 e

and Svitlana O. Didkivska

5 f

Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, 103 Chudnivska Str., Zhytomyr, 10005, Ukraine

Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the NAES Ukraine, 9 M. Berlynskoho Str., Kyiv, 04060, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

ADA University, 61 Ahmadbay Agha-Oglu Str., Baku, AZ1008, Azerbaijan

Cracow University of Economics, 27 Rakowicka Str., Krak

ow, 31-510, Poland

Keywords:

Massive Open Online Courses, Fundamentals of Programming, Software Engineering Specialists.

Abstract:

The article describes the author’s experience of using a number of information and communication technolo-

gies of education in the independent work of students in teaching the discipline “Fundamentals of Program-

ming” to future specialists in software engineering. The content of studying the discipline “Fundamentals of

Programming” and the number of hours allotted for its study in institutions of higher education in Ukraine is

analyzed. When studying the discipline “Fundamentals of Programming” at the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State

University, the study of the corresponding course on the platform of massive open online courses Sololearn

is submitted for independent work, and use of other ICTs of educational purposes. A description of the pos-

sibilities of using this Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in teaching the discipline “Fundamentals of

Programming” for future specialists in software engineering is presented. In addition, using a pedagogical

experiment, the effectiveness of using a number of information and communication technologies of education

in the independent work of students in teaching the discipline “Fundamentals of Programming” to future soft-

ware engineering specialists was tested. The results of the pedagogical experiment showed the effectiveness

of using a number of information and communication technologies of education in the independent work of

students in teaching the “Fundamentals of Programming” to future software engineering specialists.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the process of professional training of students of

specialty 121 “Software Engineering”, some profes-

sional disciplines are required to study, in particular,

“Fundamentals of Programming”, “Object-Oriented

Programming”, “Web Technologies”, etc. All disci-

plines are studied in the manner prescribed by the ed-

ucational professional program and provide for a cer-

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6825-4697

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5515-6550

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8597-1292

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7496-3553

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3884-1118

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4004-6631

tain “basic” level of knowledge for the preliminary

study of the subject.

Analysis of the curricula of higher education in

Ukraine (National University of Life and Environ-

ment Sciences of Ukraine, Zhytomyr Polytechnic

State University, National Technical University of

Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”,

Odesa Polytechnic National University) showed that

the study of the discipline “Fundamentals of Program-

ming” is given from 150 to 330 hours. Note that in

some universities this discipline is divided into two

Programming and Fundamentals of Software Engi-

neering.

A sufﬁciently large number of hours predeter-

mines the need to submit part of the material for in-

dependent study (usually from 30% to 60% of the

644

Vakaliuk, T., Chyzhmotria, O., Chyzhmotria, O., Antoniuk, D., Medvediev, M. and Didkivska, S.

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future Software Engineers.

DOI: 10.5220/0012066700003431

In Proceedings of the 2nd Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2021), pages 644-657

ISBN: 978-989-758-662-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

material is submitted for independent study, and uni-

versities themselves operate on this). A variety of

additional learning tools becomes useful here for

both teachers and students (Seidametova et al., 2022;

Vakaliuk et al., 2021; Kovalenko and Palamarchuk,

2018; Semerikov et al., 2020).

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has al-

ready gained popularity in the ﬁrst quarter of the 21st

century, so there are a lot of articles concentrated on

that topic, even more, there are books, that are de-

voted to the disclosure of this topic from different an-

gles. For example, we can see a demonstration of the

historical perspective on various stages of develop-

ment of these courses and how their value changed,

depending on the stage (Waks, 2016), advises on op-

timizing the process of their implementation and use

according to the type and stage of development of the

information infrastructure of the educational institu-

tion advice on optimizing the process of their imple-

mentation and use respectively the type and stage of

development of the information infrastructure of the

educational institution (Mesquita and Peres, 2015) or

just perspective of its evolution from a higher educa-

tion point of view (Bennett and Kent, 2017).

Speaking about the latest research results, which

undoubtedly appeared more due to the growing pop-

ularity of distance learning as a result of the pan-

demic, it is worth paying attention to Scopus as one

of the most reliable sources of veriﬁed information.

There are currently 48 articles available in this source

that focus on this topic part of them are concentrat-

ing on the adaptation of the course to the general

type and speciﬁcs of the country’s study conditions

or just on solving some speciﬁc problems universities

are forced to face too, like overcrowded universities

on the impossibility of organizing real-time face-to-

face lessons (Naji et al., 2020). However, one of the

most important and interesting aspects of the Mas-

sive Open Online Courses study is its use in teach-

ing students a speciﬁc subject, for example, mathe-

matics (Vagaeva et al., 2021), international relations

(Kaempf and Finn, 2019), geography (Syvyi et al.,

2020), physics (Huangqing and Yanping, 2021) or

languages (Lebedeva, 2021). Still, we have to remem-

ber about digital barriers (Ling et al., 2020) that stu-

dents might have while studying that way. Those bar-

riers could make effect data results and lead to a dis-

tortion of information about the prospects for the de-

velopment of the MOOC industry in education since

every year students are better versed in digital tech-

nologies. The best way out of the situation is to test

such courses on subjects that are studied by students

of specialties related to information technology. A

good example of such subjects could be computer net-

works (Vakaliuk et al., 2020) or software engineering.

A review of various MOOC platforms showed that

they mostly contain theoretical material, test tasks;

the possibility of communication between other par-

ticipants, and, in the case of learning programming

languages, a compiler is built in to train the acquired

skills.

In the professional training of future software en-

gineering specialists in the context of a pandemic and

the Russian-Ukrainian war, a combination of tradi-

tional, distance, and blended learning opportunities,

as well as the use of various additional tools, includ-

ing massive open online courses, are becoming in-

creasingly important, which allows increasing moti-

vation and student interest.

2 LEARNING THE

FUNDAMENTALS OF

PROGRAMMING WITH

MOOCs

The purpose of studying the discipline “Fundamen-

tals of Programming” is to form students’ theoretical

basis necessary for further work, obtaining theoreti-

cal knowledge and practical skills in the algorithmiza-

tion of computational processes, the basic principles

of software development in the C programming lan-

guage.

The objectives of studying the academic disci-

pline “Fundamentals of Programming” are:

• providing students with the necessary knowledge

on the theory and practice of using algorithmic

programming languages;

• to form an idea among students about the main

stages of solving a computer problem;

• the sequence of actions, skills, and abilities to

work with modern software, program debugging;

• providing students with basic knowledge and

skills with basic algorithmic structures;

• mastering by students of basic knowledge and

skills in working with arrays;

• mastering by students of different methods of

sorting arrays;

• providing students with basic knowledge and

skills for working with functions, as well as the

ability to implement recursive functions;

• mastering students the ability to work with struc-

tures, string values, pointers;

• mastering by students the basic skills of working

with repositories.

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

Software Engineers

645

Let us give an indicative topic for studying this

discipline (as an example, the program is given, ac-

cording to which they study at the Zhytomyr Poly-

technic State University).

Content module 1. Introduction to program-

ming. Basic construction methods.

Topic 1. Introduction to programming. Basic

concepts. The concept of a method. Ways of repre-

senting algorithms. The alphabet of the C program-

ming language. Directives. Connecting libraries.

Data types. Constants and variables. Declaring vari-

ables. Operations of the C programming language.

Data input-output operators. Formatting speciﬁers.

Arithmetic operations. Features of working with

them. Increment, decrement. Math functions. Block

diagram. Basic elements of ﬂowcharts. Basic algo-

rithmic constructions.

Topic 2. Branching. Comparison operations.

Logical operations. Boolean expressions. Simple

and compound logical expressions. The if branching

statement. Ternary operation. Switch statement.

Topic 3. Introduction to the Git version control

system. The concept of a repository. Existing ver-

sion control systems. Introduction to the Git version

control system.

Topic 4. Loops. The concept of a loop. Loops

with while condition. Loops with “for” parameter.

Break and continue. Loops with postcondition “do

. . . while”. The comma operation. Nested loops.

Content module 2. Arrays.

Topic 5. Setting up the program. Testing. Basic

concepts. Setting. Error types. Test types.

Topic 6. Arrays. Array concept. One-

dimensional arrays. Declaring and calling in one-

dimensional arrays. Generation of pseudo-random

numbers. Operations with one-dimensional arrays.

Topic 7. Sorting arrays. Sort by the exchange.

Sorting by the selection method. Insertion sort. Shell

sorting. Pyramid sort.

Topic 8. Multidimensional arrays. Declar-

ing and accessing multidimensional arrays. Two-

dimensional arrays. Operations with matrices.

Content module 3. Functions, pointers, struc-

tures.

Topic 9. Functions. The concept of a function.

Function prototype. Passing parameters. Functions

with a changing number of parameters. Passing an

array to a function. Recursive functions.

Topic 10. Pointers. Local and global variables.

Variable address. The concept of a pointer. Declar-

ing a variable of pointer type. Basic operations on

pointers. Features of the scanf function. Pointers and

arrays.

Topic 11. Character variables. Working with

string and character variables. String functions.

Topic 12. Structure. The concept of structure.

Arrays of structures. Programming with structures.

When studying the discipline “Fundamentals of

Programming” at the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State

University, students are recommended to study the

materials of massive open online courses as part of

their independent work. Students can take the course

offered on the MOOC platform Sololearn (Sololearn,

2023). This course provides an opportunity to study

individual theoretical blocks, and perform individual

test tasks and certain ﬁnal works.

Let us consider the possibility of using MOOC

Sololearn when studying the course “Fundamentals

of Programming” as part of additional independent

work. The ﬁrst thing to point out is that this course

is in English, and since this platform does not pro-

vide for any actions of teachers or instructors, it is not

possible to localize in another language.

This course involves studying the material and im-

proving skills in the basics of programming in the fol-

lowing sections: basic concepts of the C program-

ming language; conditional expressions and loops;

functions, arrays, pointers; strings and function point-

ers; structures; memory management; ﬁle and error

handling; preprocessor.

These topics fully cover the topics for study in the

main course “Fundamentals of Programming” and are

their logical addition. Another feature of this MOOC

platform is that the courses are freely available and

anyone can take them. Yes, not all features of the

platform are freely available, but if you wish, you can

purchase the full version for an in-depth study of the

material. Another feature of this platform is that each

course is provided with a separate address where you

can enter the course without wasting time searching

for the course.

When you log into your account at the address of

a speciﬁc course (Sololearn, 2023), the user opens his

proﬁle of passing (studying) the course (ﬁgure 1).

Each section (study topic) in this MOOC includes

theoretical information (ﬁgure 2), containing material

for repeating what was learned in the classroom.

This MOOC can leave comments on all activities

of each topic. Such a section is located in the upper

right corner, by entering which a registered user at

the stage of viewing theoretical material can commu-

nicate with other registered users through comments

(ﬁgure 3).

However, it should be noted that not in all sections

of the MOOC data, such an opportunity is open im-

mediately. In addition to theoretical material, users

are allowed to view examples of program execution

and try to work with them on their own, making cer-

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646

Figure 1: Personal account for studying the course.

tain changes (ﬁgure 4 and ﬁgure 5).

This platform MOOC also provides a task for test-

ing knowledge of various forms, for example, choos-

ing 1 answer from several proposed ones (ﬁgure 6)

and entering your answer (ﬁgure 7). At the same time,

it should be noted that the section of communication

through comments in such tasks becomes available

only after checking the answer. For each topic, up to

10 tasks of this type are given to consolidating knowl-

edge.

After passing the module, the user is presented

with a ﬁnal test (ﬁgure 8), which consists similarly

of several questions (from 5 to 10), and according to

the result, it is set whether the module was enrolled to

him.

It should also be noted here that the next mod-

ule will not be opened to the user until he completely

completes the previous one (ﬁgure 1).

If we consider each topic offered in this MOOC,

then in section 1 “Basic concepts” there is a repe-

tition of the base of the C programming language,

namely: data types, arithmetic operators, comments

in the code, working with the console (input and

output). In section 2 “Conditional statements and

loops”, conditional statements were considered, such

as: if, else, switch, three types of loops: for, while,

do. . . while. The section also included theory on logi-

cal operators, which are &&, which means “and”, and

||, which means “or”.

Section 3 “Functions, Arrays, and Pointers” pro-

vides material that is completely repetitive to the

classroom material. As a result, in this section, there

is only a repetition of the studied material, as well as

the consolidation of the necessary skills for working

with arrays, functions, and pointers.

Section 4 “Strings and Function Pointers” has a

new topic that doesn’t overlap with the classroom ma-

terial. This is the “Pointers to Functions” topic, which

explains in detail how to declare and access functions

using pointers. The next section is “Structures and

Unions”. It should be noted here that again students

were offered a new topic for study – this is the topic

“Union”, in which students can learn about unions,

which allow storing different types of data in the same

place in memory, accessed through the dot operator

located between the name of a variable and the name

of a particular union member.

In Section 6 “Memory Management”, the follow-

ing functions were considered for memory allocation

on dynamic array memory (malloc, calloc), array ex-

pansion (realloc), and freeing (free). This material

is not new to the student, since this topic completely

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

Software Engineers

647

Figure 2: Theoretical material in the MOOC Sololearn.

overlaps with the topic for studying in the classroom,

so students in this section only consolidated their

knowledge and skills.

Section 7 “File and error handling” is the largest

section in terms of the amount of new material that

is submitted for independent processing. By study-

ing the topics in this section, students can learn how

ﬁles are handled in the C language, which is used for

this function, what binary ﬁles are, and how to handle

errors.

Section 8 “Preprocessor” contained some of the

material that students studied in the classroom and

some of the new. The topics covered in this section

are preprocessor directives, conditional compilation

directives, and preprocessor statements.

Note that the advantage of such MOOC is that all

the material is structured, and for each topic, there is

theoretical material, attempts to work with the pro-

gram code, and knowledge testing.

The use of this MOOC for self-processing by stu-

dents within the framework of the course “Fundamen-

tals of Programming” contributes to the consolidation

of the mastered theoretical material, since the course

contains a repetition of the theory presented to stu-

dents in lectures on this discipline, as well as the de-

velopment and improvement of skills in programming

in the C language.

During the course, students can view the progress

bar (ﬁgure 9), and after successful completion of the

course, students receive a certiﬁcate (ﬁgure 10).

Note that the MOOC Sololearn is adaptive for var-

ious systems and, accordingly, devices, so the user has

the opportunity to use it from any device.

The use of MOOCs in the educational process

of higher education contributes to the assimilation of

the material through one’s own practical experience,

mostly independent. After all, students can get ac-

quainted with additional theoretical information, view

various examples with solutions in the C language,

and at the same time they can also try to change a

fragment of the program code using the knowledge

gained; perform a separate task by writing code frag-

ments in the answer, and, of course, take a test to test

your knowledge.

The use of such a MOOC provides 100% cover-

age of the topics provided by the training program for

studying the discipline “Fundamentals of Program-

ming”. Note that MOOC is not the main one in the

study of the course “Fundamentals of Programming”.

It is only an auxiliary tool for consolidating knowl-

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

648

Figure 3: The ability to communicate through comments in

the MOOC Sololearn.

edge and skills during lectures and practical exercises.

In particular, to study the basics of programming,

students are also offered the following MOOC for in-

dependent study:

1. C programming (https://moocﬁ.github.io/courses/

2016/aalto-c/en/)

2. Learn the Basics of C Program-

ming Language (https://www.eduonix.

com/courses/Software-Development/

Learn-the-Basics-of-C-Programming-Language)

3. Programming Fundamentals (https://www.

coursera.org/learn/programming-fundamentals?

specialization=c-programming)

4. Writing, Running, and Fixing Code

in C (https://www.coursera.org/learn/

writing-running-ﬁxing-code?specialization=

c-programming)

5. Pointers, Arrays, and Recursion (https://www.

coursera.org/learn/pointers-arrays-recursion?

specialization=c-programming)

6. Interacting with the System and Manag-

ing Memory (https://www.coursera.org/

learn/interacting-system-managing-memory?

specialization=c-programming)

7. Learn C (https://www.learn-c.org/)

The listed MOOC are offered for additional study

of the basics of programming, their content covers the

topics of studying the course “Fundamentals of Pro-

gramming”. However, to fully study the course, for

example, on the MOOC Coursera, you need to com-

plete 4 courses.

Note that within the framework of studying the

discipline “Fundamentals of Programming”, students

have the right to choose any similar course that fully

covers the study of the topics of this discipline, of

course, by the decision of the teachers.

It should be noted that in order to motivate stu-

dents to use additional means, including MOOC, the

Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University decided to

count certiﬁcates of certain courses as separate com-

ponents of the study of the subject (as part of the study

of individual topics). To enroll as a separate topic or

within the subject is decided by teachers who teach

the basics of programming to collective solutions. In

addition, at the discretion of the teachers, the comple-

tion of such courses is counted as a separate part of

the number of points for the overall rating. This helps

to motivate students to successfully complete the full

course.

It should be noted that most of the proposed

MOOCs are in English, which, along with master-

ing certain programming knowledge, helps to im-

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

Software Engineers

649

Figure 4: Ability to work with program code in Sololearn.

Figure 5: Working with program code in Sololearn.

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

650

Figure 6: Choice of 1 correct answer.

prove the level of foreign language proﬁciency, which

is a mandatory requirement for future programmers,

testers and project managers when applying for a job.

We also note that once a year, before the start of a

new academic year, it is necessary to check the avail-

able new MOOC for a qualitative update of the pro-

posed list.

Students are encouraged to master these materi-

als on their own as an additional source of study of a

particular subject.

These courses were chosen in accordance with

the subject “Fundamentals of Programming”, as well

as in accordance with the competencies that students

have at the end of the course. The experience of

teachers working with international software compa-

nies will also play a role in choosing a course.

The work of students with MOOC provides:

• study of theoretical material on a particular sub-

ject;

• implementation of scientiﬁc projects using ac-

quired knowledge and skills;

• implementation of joint projects with their further

presentation and defense in front of a group of stu-

dents.

In addition, other teaching aids should be used for

independent work of students. In particular, to get

acquainted with theoretical information, we offer for

use a number of electronic textbooks on the basics of

programming in the C language:

1. https://metanit.com/cpp/c/1.1.php

2. https://www.codesdope.com/c-lets-start/ (ﬁg-

ure 11)

3. https://www.codingeek.com/

c-programming-tutorials/ (ﬁgure 12)

4. https://www.codingeek.com/

tutorials/c-programming/

beginning-with-c-programming-language/

5. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/

c-programming-language/

It should be noted here that all but the ﬁrst two

resources are in English. These electronic manuals

are clearly structured, freely available, and offered to

a wide range of users. The second service is quite

popular because it contains not only theoretical infor-

mation but also speciﬁc examples for each topic.

Such online resources allow not only to get ac-

quainted with theoretical material, but also to commu-

nicate with each other through comments on relevant

topics. Often, the authors of such resources support

feedback and provide users with comprehensive an-

swers.

Teachers offer students for preliminary acquain-

tance with theoretical material and subsequent discus-

sion of problematic issues of individual topics in the

classroom. In addition, at the discretion of the teacher,

the material can be taken out for independent study by

students, and then the presentation of the material at

lectures by the students themselves in front of their

fellow students for additional points.

In addition, students are encouraged to use

freely available videos, in particular, the free online

programming course in C for beginners (https://www.

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL76809ED684A081F3).

This course is logically divided into lessons, where

the author offers his own vision of learning the C

programming language. So, for independent work,

and familiarization with the material, this is a fairly

useful resource that clearly shows all the possibilities

of the C programming language.

The listed means contribute to the consolidation of

theoretical knowledge on the basics of programming,

as well as self-learning and self-development.

In addition, to consolidate practical programming

skills, the authors offer a number of available tests to

test knowledge and programming skills:

1. C Programming Online Test https:

//www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/

cprogramming online test.htm

2. C Programming Test https://www.indiabix.com/

online-test/c-programming-test/

3. C Online Test https://www.testdome.com/tests/

c-online-test/62

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

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651

Figure 7: Entering your answer.

Figure 8: Module test.

Figure 9: Course completion scale.

4. C Quiz | C Online Test https://www.javatpoint.

com/c-quiz (ﬁgure 13)

5. C Online Test http://www.pskills.org/c.jsp (ﬁg-

ure 14)

6. Online C Programming Test – Free MCQ’s to

test your C Skills https://data-ﬂair.training/blogs/

online-c-programming-test/

7. C Online Quiz Test https://codescracker.com/

exam/showtest.php?subid=2 (ﬁgure 15)

8. C Programming Online Test https://www.

jobstron.com/c-programming-online-test

It should be noted here that some of the tests are

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

652

Figure 10: Certiﬁcate.

generalized for the entire course C (1, 3 – hereinafter,

respectively, the number of the means for testing), and

the other part is a set of tests on topics (2, 4, 5, 6, 7,

8). Note that these tests are divided into topics in dif-

ferent ways. Some services offer detailed breakdowns

into topics (2, 4, 5, 6), while others are superﬁcial and

cover only selected topics.

Here it should be noted that, again, the decision of

teachers, to pass tests covering most topics, may be

accompanied by additional motivation in the form of

additional points instead of lost ones (for late delivery,

for example, laboratory work).

In addition to all of the above for independent

work, students are offered a parallel study of various

programming languages. To do this, students are of-

fered the same resources, only with an emphasis on

a different programming language. Also, dual edu-

cation started this year at the Zhytomyr Polytechnic

State University. Its essence lies in the fact that in the

course of studying the basics of programming in the

1st semester, students can study object-oriented pro-

gramming in courses from ISM Ukraine. As a result

of taking these courses, students were asked to have

an interview on theoretical material with the course

teacher and subject teachers at the university, and as

a result, receive an appropriate grade in the next sub-

ject. This contributes to the development of the self-

organization of students, the organization of their em-

ployment, and usually the use of various additional

means for self-study.

It should be noted that the list of proposed ICTs

for teaching the basics of programming was formed

by the authors as a result of their many years of ex-

perience (Vakaliuk et al., 2020, 2021) and other their

works, as well as preliminary scientiﬁc research on

the selection of appropriate learning tools. There-

fore, the each teacher can choose the range of infor-

mation and communication technologies for teaching

independently. In particular, as you know, now there

Table 1: Comparative distribution of students from the CG

and the EG by the level of educational achievements in the

fundamentals of programming at the beginning and end of

the pedagogical experiment.

Level of academic Before After

achievement CG EG CG EG

Beginner (1-59) 10 10 9 5

Average (60-73) 25 27 21 10

Sufﬁcient (74-89) 21 19 24 33

High (90-100) 9 8 11 16

Total 65 64 65 64

are many games and simulators for learning program-

ming languages. The only drawback in our case is that

there are no such tools speciﬁcally for learning the C

language. However, if the basics of programming in

some higher education institutions are studied on the

example of another programming language, the use

of such games contributes to even greater interest and

motivation of students.

In addition, another tool for effective independent

work of students we see Gitlab, which on the basis

of the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University is used

not only in classroom work, but also in extracurricular

activities. Thus, in cooperation with ISM Ukraine, on

the basis of this institution of higher education began

to implement the so-called program “Code Review”,

in which employees of IT companies provide their

recommendations to students to successfully improve

their own laboratory work. All this is done within

the framework of using the Gitlab service for success-

ful communication of all members of the educational

process.

To test the effectiveness of the implementation of

a number of information and communication tech-

nologies of education in the independent work of

students in the study of the discipline “Fundamen-

tals of Programming”, a pedagogical experiment was

conducted based on the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State

University, which consisted in comparing the learn-

ing outcomes according to the traditional method of

teaching the basics of programming and the author’s

using a number of information and communication

technologies of education in the independent work of

students.

For this, the applicants for the education of 1 year

of study were divided into the EG and the CG (exper-

imental and control groups, respectively). In the CG,

training was carried out according to the traditional

method, and in the EG – using a number of informa-

tion and communication technologies of education in

the independent work of students.

Statistical data of the EG and CG before and after

the experiment are presented in table 1 and ﬁgure 16.

To test the statistical equivalence (to the exper-

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

Software Engineers

653

Figure 11: https://www.codesdope.com/c-lets-start/

Figure 12: https://www.codingeek.com/c-programming-tutorials/

iment) and statistical non-equivalence (after the ex-

periment), the Pearson test was applied, the result of

which was found:

• at the beginning of the pedagogical experiment, it

was found that χ

emp

= 0.36, χ

emp

< χ

0.05

, there-

fore, the samples do not have statistically signif-

icant differences, and this means that the compo-

sition of students in the EG and CG is approxi-

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654

Figure 13: C Quiz | C Online Test.

Figure 14: C Online Quiz Test.

The Use of ICT of Educational Purposes in the Independent Work of Students in the Study of the Basics of Programming by Future

Software Engineers

655

Figure 15: C Online Quiz Test.

Figure 16: Comparative distribution of students in CG and EG according to the level of academic achievements in the funda-

mentals of programming at the beginning and end of the pedagogical experiment.

mately equivalent;

• at the end of the pedagogical experiment, it was

found that χ

emp

= 8.48, χ

emp

> χ

0.01

and this indi-

cates that the samples have statistically signiﬁcant

differences at this stage.

Since the statistical data testify to the positive dy-

namics of a sufﬁcient and high level of educational

achievements in the experimental group at the end

of the pedagogical experiment, which is conﬁrmed

experimentally, we can conclude that the experimen-

tal methodological system of teaching “Fundamentals

of Programming” using a number of information and

communication technologies of education in the in-

dependent work of students is more effective than the

traditional one.

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3 CONCLUSIONS

When teaching the basics of programming to future

software engineers, changes should be made to the

curriculum of the discipline with the addition of a

number of information and communication technolo-

gies of education for independent work. As the con-

ducted pedagogical experiment showed, the use of a

number of information and communication technolo-

gies of education in the independent work of students

in teaching the basics of programming to future bach-

elors in software engineering helps to increase the

level of student’s educational achievements. In ad-

dition, as the students themselves point out, the use

of various tools in the educational process contributes

to their self-development, motivation, and interest,

and helps to consolidate the acquired knowledge and

skills. As for the prospects for further research, the

authors see them in the search and development of

new qualitatively new learning tools for the basics of

programming.

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