Programming is an important skill in the 21st century, but it is difficult for novices to learn. To help students practice and learn efficiently, the authors developed a mobile platform called Daily Quiz, which incorporated distributed practice theory. To evaluate the impact of distributed practice in programming learning facilitated by Daily Quiz, the authors conducted a between-subject experiment with 200 freshmen divided into two groups. Both groups received the same number of multiple-choice questions via Daily Quiz. However, the control group was encouraged to practice every 7 days, whereas the experimental group was encouraged to practice every 3 days. The results showed that this simple manipulation significantly improved the experimental group’s performance on final exams. Further analysis revealed that the experimental group of students achieved a higher rate of first-check correctness and tended to be more engaged in academic social interaction. Finally, a behavioral sequence analysis was adopted to compare the behavioral patterns of the two groups to investigate how distributed practice helped the students learn more efficiently.

编程是21世纪的一项重要技能，但对于新手来说很难学。为了帮助学生有效地练习和学习，作者开发了一个名为 Daily Quiz 的移动平台，该平台结合了分布式实践理论。为了评估分布式实践对 Daily Quiz 促进的编程学习的影响，作者进行了一项跨学科实验，将 200 名新生分为两组。两组都通过每日测验收到相同数量的多项选择题。但是，鼓励对照组每7天练习一次，而鼓励实验组每3天练习一次。结果表明，这种简单的操作显着提高了实验组在期末考试中的表现。进一步分析显示，实验组学生的初检正确率更高，更倾向于参与学术社交。最后，采用行为序列分析比较两组的行为模式，以研究分布式练习如何帮助学生更有效地学习。