Abstract
In the Italian Bebras Challenge on Informatics and Computational Thinkings, an interactive online platform is used to display attractive tasks to teams of pupils, and evaluate the answers they submit. We instrumented the platform in order to collect also data concerning the interactions of pupils with the system. We analyzed this data according to a multidimensional model use to describe such interaction, and collected many overall statistics on the problem solving process and teams’ behavior. The fine grained data we logged was also useful to analyze how the teams engaged with specific tasks, which we designed as easy and turned out to be difficult. By looking at the data, we were able to explain the unexpected difficulties, nailing down what had distracted or confused many solvers.
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Full statistics are available, in Italian, at https://bebras.it/1819/Statistiche+gare.html.
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The logging of events relies on the clocks of the computers used by contestants.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Bebras community for the great effort spent in producing exciting task ideas.
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Appendix
Appendix
We present here some figures related to task T04 (Waterfalls) and T01 (Anthill scramble).
Figure 10 shows a methodical but wrong behavior; the team followed a methodical exploration without being able to recognize the correct answer even if they examined it for almost 20 s.
Figures 11a) and b) show two examples of non-methodical behavior.
Figure 12a and b show the behaviors of two examples of two teams that do not use an incremental approach; one succeeds, the other does not.
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Bellettini, C., Lonati, V., Monga, M., Morpurgo, A. (2020). Behind the Shoulders of Bebras Teams: Analyzing How They Interact with the Platform to Solve Tasks. In: Lane, H.C., Zvacek, S., Uhomoibhi, J. (eds) Computer Supported Education. CSEDU 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1220. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58459-7_10
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