research-article

Understanding novice programmer difficulties via guided learning

Authors:

Shuhaida Mohamed Shuhidan,

Margaret Hamilton,

Daryl D'SouzaAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '11: Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 213 - 217

https://doi.org/10.1145/1999747.1999808

Published: 27 June 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Learning to program is known to be problematic for a significant number of students as evidenced by high failure rates reported by Computer Science schools. Students either fail to comprehend a range of fundamental programming concepts or carry misunderstandings and misconceptions about programming well into the semester, leading to summative assessment failures. Multiple choice questions in summative assessments are a popular choice of instrument to test novice learners of programming, yet during their formative stages such questions are typically used in the traditional "practice" or "rote learning" contexts, leaving gaps in understanding of programming concepts. In this paper we report the use of multiple choice exercises in a guided learning approach, within the learning context of novice programmers who are typically first-time university students of a Computer Science program. In addition to the use of multiple choice questions for practice, we propose a guided learning tool to identify cognitive lapses in learning programming. We report results of a pilot study that uses a partially-completed guided learning tool, to prevent students at the outset from falling into the cognitive traps that often ensnare the novice programmer.

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Cited By

Paul J(2015)Insights from first-semester computer science end-of-course examsJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/2831432.283144931:2(112-123)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2831432.2831449
Neve PHunter GLivingstone D(2014)NoobLabProceedings of the 2014 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Manycore SoCs10.1109/MCSoC.2014.17(55-62)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MCSoC.2014.17

Index Terms

Understanding novice programmer difficulties via guided learning
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '11: Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

June 2011

418 pages

ISBN:9781450306973

DOI:10.1145/1999747

General Chair:
Guido Rößling
TU Darmstadt, Germany
,
Program Chairs:
Tom Naps
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA
,
Christian Spannagel
PH Heidelberg, Germany

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 27 June 2011

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ITiCSE '11: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 27 - 29, 2011

Darmstadt, Germany

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Cited By

Paul J(2015)Insights from first-semester computer science end-of-course examsJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/2831432.283144931:2(112-123)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2831432.2831449
Neve PHunter GLivingstone D(2014)NoobLabProceedings of the 2014 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Manycore SoCs10.1109/MCSoC.2014.17(55-62)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MCSoC.2014.17

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