We are asking you to participate in a research study titled “Feedback for a Game to Teach Programming Concepts”. We will describe this study to you and answer any of your questions. This study is being led by Yiting Wang, Department of Computer Science and the Faculty Advisor for this study is Erik Andersen, Department of Computer Science.
The purpose of this research is collect information and feedback about student interactions with an online game to teach programming.
If you agree to this study, we will first give a brief lecture about some programming concepts, and then you will play an online game for about 60 minutes. After this process, we will ask you to complete an online survey. The purpose of our work is to get feedback from students about the game. By consenting to participate in the study, you allow us to record your interactions with the game through an anonymous logging mechanism, as well as the responses to the survey. All data will be completely anonymous.
Participants must be over 18 years old and currently enrolled at Cornell University.
We anticipate that your participation in this study presents minimal risk to you. There are no direct benefits to you, but we hope this study will improve programming education for future students.
There is no payment or course credit for taking part in the study.
Data from your play-through of the game and answers to the web-based questionnaire will be anonymously logged. We anticipate that your participation in the survey presents no greater risk than everyday use of the Internet. The records of this study will be kept private. In any sort of report we make public we will not include any information that will make it possible to identify you. Research records will be kept in a locked file only accessible to the researchers conducting this study.
Your participation in this study is voluntary and you may refuse to participate before the study begins and discontinue at any time. Taking part in the study or withdrawing without completion will in no way affect your academic standing, record, future/current employment status, or relationship with Cornell or Computing and Information Science.
The researchers conducting this study are Yiting Wang, David Li, Yishu Zhang, Prof. Erik Andersen, Prof. Francois Guimbretiere, and Prof. Andrew Myers. If you have questions, please ask them now. If you have questions later, you may contact Yiting Wang at yw428@cs.cornell.edu or at 908-251-3614 or Erik Andersen at eland@cs.cornell.edu or at 607-255-8306. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a subject in this study, you may contact the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Human Participants at 607-255-6182 or access their website at http://www.irb.cornell.edu. You may also report your concerns or complaints anonymously through Ethicspoint online at www.hotline.cornell.edu or by calling toll free at 1-866-293-3077. Ethicspoint is an independent organization that serves as a liaison between the University and the person bringing the complaint so that anonymity can be ensured.
I have read the above information and have received answers to any questions I asked. I consent to take part in the study.
You may still play the game if you do not agree. We will not collect or retain any information from your play session.