Investigating students' preferences and perceptions of online resources in an emergency-remote introductory programming course

Although online programming courses offer flexible learning formats, research shows that students report increased feelings of isolation and often end up dropping out of such courses. In this thesis, we investigated a study case of university students enrolled in an introductory programming course offered in an emergency-remote context. Through surveys and interviews, we sought to understand what difficulties students faced, what learning strategies they used, and what types of resources they preferred. We found that most students felt compelled to consult web-based resources (e.g., Q\&A forums, videos) on their own and chose to ignore their own notes and curated resources offered by the instructor. Although many of the students realized that they wasted time searching the web unsuccessfully, they continued to search incessantly, neither asking for help nor self-monitoring the value of their learning strategy. We discuss several possible theories and provide recommendations for improving students' interactions with learning resources.