First Programming Course in Business Studies: Content, Approach, and Achievement

Abstract

This paper presents the content of, a didactic approach to, and achievement of a first programming course for students engaged in business studies. Visual and textual programming were combined and a didactic approach that mainly focused on programming and fulfilling sub-tasks was used. This educational approach was applied to novice students of average ability and resulted in modest programming achievements. These achievements are first summarized, presenting the solution of a web application whose development was accessible to most students. Then, possible reasons for such achievements are discussed. The paper ends with several suggestions for practice and research, including a proposal for another sequencing of programming topics that would increase students’ motivation to learn programming and improve their learning outcomes. Requirements for hybrid environments supporting both visual and textual programming are also considered. Although the applied methodology and resulting achievements reflect the authors experience in teaching programming to second-year undergraduate students, they are relevant to teaching programming in high school education as well.

Appendices

Appendix A – Solution of Exchange office task

• A. Code produced by textual programming, which has to be entered by the programmer, is given in Fig. 2 between $\{\}$.

• B. Code generated by visual programming is presented in Fig. 3. Ten controls needed are underlined, whereas the values that have to be assigned by the programmer are shaded.

Fig. 2.

Code produced by textual programming

Fig. 3.

Code generated by visual programming

Appendix B – A sample of tasks given at three exams

Exam 1

To participate at a symposium, one needs to pay transportation costs of 500 EUR, accommodation costs of 100 EUR per day, and symposium fees of 300 EUR. The total costs of a 3-day participation at that symposium are thus 500 EUR + 3 * 100 EUR + 300 EUR = 1,100 EUR. Write a web application that calculates and displays the total participation costs for given transportation costs, accommodation costs per day, number of days of stay, and symposium fees. Use three different controls for data validation.

Exam 2

Create a database comprising one table with data about donations, whose attributes are: donation code, donator’s name, donator’s country of residence (domestic, foreign), and donation amount (in EUR).

• A. Write a web application that displays and updates the content of this database.

• B. Extend the application developed under A so that for the country of residence given, an extended application displays only data of donators having that residence country.

  Use three different controls for data validation to ensure that to be entered in the database, the donation code must consist of two letters followed by two digits (e.g., RU07).

Exam 3

Business efficiency is found by dividing expenses by revenue. If expenses equal 100,000 EUR and revenue is equal to 200,000 EUR, this efficiency is 100,000 EUR/200,000 EUR = 0.5, which means that for each EUR earned by a firm, it needs to spend 0.5 EUR.

• A. Develop a web application that calculates and displays the efficiency for given expenses and revenue. Use three different controls for data validation.

• B. If expenses are greater than revenue, the application has to return a message “Expenses greater than revenue!”

• C. For expenses and revenue given, calculate and display efficiency for the given data, as well as for revenues that are 10% and 20% higher than that given.

  To round the value of the efficiency to two decimal places, use the method MathRound (name_of_variable, 2).