Enabling Computer Science Students to Choose Their Own Adventure in a Mandatory and Curricular Challenge-Based Learning Course

This research-to-practice full paper describes the results we got from enabling students to fine-tune their own learning experience in a Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) course. Engineering educators have been working for several years on how best to integrate CBL into computing courses, recognizing CBL's role in fostering crucial skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. At FIE 2023, we proposed a possible scaffold named 'Choose Your Own Adventure in Challenge-Based Learning' (CYOA-CBL) that aimed to make CBL more adaptable and empower the students to personalise their experience, positioning themselves in a spectrum ranging from a more open and creative approach to a more structured and guided CBL experience. During the past academic year, we implemented CYOA-CBL in a mandatory four-month course at a medium-sized European university. With this work, we present the results we got from a qualitative study where we used mixed methods of data collection to evaluate CYOA-CBL and verify whether students understood the course process. In this paper, we discuss how students tended to adopt both open and structured approach and they appreciated the flexible nature of the course, leveraging the opportunity to change their path during the process to adapt it to their challenges. Students also valued the recurring structure of CYOA-CBL mentoring and tutorials and they had a general good understanding of the 'next steps' to perform. At the same time, they highlighted the need to improve the tutorials, even if in a controversial way.