Codigen: Enhancing Personalized Programming Education with Visual Authoring and LLMs

Computer programming is an essential skill for the 21st-century workforce. However, mastering programming is challenging, especially for beginners. Recently, digital tools have become popular in supporting programming education. However, creating engaging programming materials remains difficult due to the many factors that need consideration. We introduce Codigen, an interactive tool powered by large language models (LLMs) that integrates visual authoring and prompt engineering to support programming education with various learning strategies. A user study with 29 participants showed that Codigen can assist teachers in generating quality programming materials. Statistical analysis showed that Codigen supports learners’ confidence and learning outcomes in programming. The perceived utility and engagement with the tool were also statistically significant. We discuss our findings to guide the design and use of LLM-powered authoring tools for educational purposes.