research-article

Computing Teachers' Perspectives on Threshold Concepts: Functions and Procedural Abstraction

Authors:

Sue SentanceAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '17: Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Pages 15 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/3137065.3137085

Published: 08 November 2017 Publication History

Abstract

With the introduction of the new computing curriculum in England, teachers are facing many challenges, among them the teaching of computer programming. Literature suggests that the conceptual understanding of this subject contributes to its difficulty and that threshold concepts, as a source of troublesome knowledge, have a significant role in this. This paper explores computing teachers' perspectives on the Threshold Concept framework and suggests potential threshold concepts in the area of Functions and, more generally, in Procedural Abstraction. A study was conducted, using the Delphi method, including both computing teachers with experience teaching at upper secondary/high school and computing teachers with experience practicing programming in a professional environment for more than 7 years. The results indicate that the majority of the participants support that the Threshold Concept framework can explain students' difficulties in programming and agreed on 11 potential threshold concepts in the area of Functions and Procedural Abstraction. The participants focused more on the troublesome characteristic of threshold concepts and less on the transformative and integrative. Most of the participants also specified that they would change the way they teach a concept if they knew that this is a threshold one. Finally, the paper discusses the findings and how these will shape our future research.

References

[1]

J.R Avella. 2016. Delphi panels: Research design, procedures, advantages, and challenges. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 11, 1 (2016), 305--321.

[2]

S. Barradell. 2013. The identification of threshold concepts: A review of theoretical complexities and methodological challenges. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 65, 2 (2013), 256--276.

[3]

S. Booth. 1993. The experience of learning to program. Example: Recursion. In Fifth Annual Psychology of Programming Interest Group workshop (ICSE '16). Paris:INRIA, 122--145.

[4]

J. Bourgeois, L. Pugmire, K. Stevenson, N. Swanson, and B. Swanson. 2009. The Delphi method: A qualitative means to a better future. (2009). http://www.freequality.org/documents/knowledge/delphimethod.pdf Retrieved March 15, 2017.

[5]

J. Boustedt, A. Eckerdal, R. McCartney, J.E. Moström, M. Ratcliffe, K. Sanders, and C. Zander. 2007. Threshold Concepts in Computer Science: Do They Exist and Are They Useful? (SIGCSE '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 504--508.

Digital Library

[6]

C.L. Chen, S.Y. Cheng, and J.M.C. Lin. 2010. A study of misconceptions and missing conceptions of novice Java programmers. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering (FECS' 12). The Steering Committee of The World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp), 84--89.

[7]

G. Cousin. 2010. Neither teacher-centred nor student-centred: threshold concepts and research partnerships. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 2 (2010), 1--9.

[8]

J.S. Dajani, M.Z. Sincoff, and W.K. Talley. 1979. The Delphi stability and agreement criteria. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 13, 1 (1979), 81--90.

[9]

N.C. Dalkey and O. Helmer. 1963. An experimental application of the Delphi Method to the use of experts. Management Science 9, 3 (1963), 458--467.

[10]

P.L. Davidson. 2013. The Delphi technique in doctoral research: considerations and rationale. Review of Higher Education and Self-Learning 6, 22 (2013), 53--65.

[11]

E. De Vet, J. Brug, J. De Nooijer, A. Dijkstra, and N.K De Vries. 2005. Determinants of forward stage transitions: a Delphi study. Health Education Research 20, 2 (2005), 195--205.

[12]

M. de Villiers, P. de Villiers, and A. Kent. 2005. The Delphi technique in health sciences education research. Medical Teacher 27, 7 (2005), 639--643.

[13]

F. Detienne. 1997. Assessing the cognitive consequenses of the object-oriented approach: a survey of empirical research on object-oriented design by individuals and teams. Interacting with Computer 9, 1 (1997), 47--72.

[14]

B. Du Boulay. 1986. Some Difficulties of Learning to Program. Journal of Educational Computing Research 2, 1 (1986), 57--73.

[15]

A. Eckerdal. 2009. Novice Programming Students' Learning of Concepts and Practice. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis. Ph.D. Dissertation.

[16]

A. Eckerdal, R. McCartney, J.E. Moström, M. Ratcliffe, K. Sanders, and C. Zander. 2006. Putting Threshold Concepts into Context in Computer Science Education. In Proceedings of the 11th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITICSE '06). ACM, Bologna, Italy, 103--107.

Digital Library

[17]

A. Fleury. 1991. Parameter passing: the rules the students construct. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 23, 1 (1991), 283--286.

Digital Library

[18]

J. Gal-Ezer and D. Harel. 1998. What (else) Should CS Educators Know? "Communications of the ACM" 41, 9 (sep 1998), 77--84.

Digital Library

[19]

L. Giannarou and E. Zervas. 2014. Using Delphi technique to build consensus in practice. International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management 9, 2 (2014), 65--82.

[20]

K. Goldman, P. Gross, C. Heeren, G. Herman, L. Kaczmarczyk, M.C. Loui, and C. Zilles. 2008. Identifying Important and Difficult Concepts in Introductory Computing Courses Using a Delphi Process. In Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '08). ACM, Portland, OR, USA, 256--260.

Digital Library

[21]

A. Habibi, A. Sarafrazi, and S. Izadyar. 2014. Delphi technique theoretical framework in qualitative research. The International Journal of Engineering and Science 3, 4 (2014), 8--13.

[22]

B. Harrison, P.H. Clayton, and G.A. Tilley-Lubbs. 2014. Troublesome Knowledge, Troubling Experience: An Inquiry into Faculty Learning in Service-Learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 20, 2 (2014), 5--18.

[23]

F. Hasson, S. Keeney, and H. McKenna. 2000. Research guidelines for the Delphi survey technique. Journal of Advanced Nursing 32, 4 (2000), 1008--1015.

[24]

F. Heintz, L. Mannila, and T. Färnqvist. 2016. A review of models for introducing computational thinking, computer science and computing in K-12 education. In Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE '16). IEEE, Eire, PA, USA, 1--9.

[25]

G. Hejblum, V. Ioos, J. Vibert, P. Böelle, C. Chalumeau-Lemoine, C. Chouaid, A. Valleron, and B. Guidet. 2008. A web-based Delphi study on the indications of chest radiographs for patients in ICUs. Chest Journal 133, 5 (2008), 1107--1112.

[26]

M. Holloway, E. Alpay, and A. Bull. 2010. A quantitative approach to identifying threshold concepts in engineering education. In Engineering Education 2010 (EE2010) Inspiring the next generation of engineers. Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre, Loughborough, UK.

[27]

C.C. Hsu and B.A. Sandford. 2006. The Delphi Technique: Making Sense Of Consensus. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation 12, 10 (2006), 1--8.

[28]

M. Kiley and G. Wisker. 2009. Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of Threshold crossing. Higher Education Research and Development 28, 4 (2009), 431--441.

[29]

R. Land, J. Rattray, and P. Vivian. 2014. Learning in the liminal space: a semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education 67, 2 (2014), 199--217.

[30]

H.A Linstone and M. Turoff. 1975. The Delphi method: Techniques and applications. Vol. 29. Addison-Wesley Reading, MA.

[31]

B.G. Ludwig. 1994. Internationalizing Extension: An Exploration of the Characteristics Evident in a State University Extension System that Achieves Internationalization. Ohio State University.

[32]

S. Madison and J. Gifford. 1997. Parameter passing: The conceptions novices construct. Technical Report. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED406211

[33]

S.A Male and C.A Baillie. 2011. Engineering Threshold Concepts. In Proceedings of SEFI Annual Conference. Lisbon, Portugal, 251--257. http://www.sefi.be/wp-content/papers2011/T7/24.pdf

[34]

R. McCauley, S. Grissom, S. Fitzgerald, and L. Murphy. 2015. Teaching and learning recursive programming: a review of the research literature. Computer Science Education 25, 1 (2015), 37--66.

[35]

H.P. McKenna. 1994. The Delphi technique: a worthwhile approach to nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 19, 6 (1994), 1221--5.

[36]

J.H.F Meyer and R. Land. 2003. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practicing. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving Student Learning-Ten Years On. Oxford, OCSLD.

[37]

A. Miller, Settle and J. Lalor. 2015. Learning object-oriented programming in python: Toward an inventory of diculties and testing pitfalls. Technical Report. School of Computing, DePaul University.

[38]

M. Murphy, N. Black, D. Lamping, C. McKee, C. Sanderson, J. Askham, and T. Marteau. 1998. Consensus development methods, and their use in clinical guideline development. Health Technology Assessment 2, 3 (1998), 1--88.

[39]

D. N. Perkins and Fay Martin. 1986. Fragile Knowledge and Neglected Strategies in Novice Programmers. In Papers Presented at the First Workshop on Empirical Studies of Programmers on Empirical Studies of Programmers. Ablex Publishing Corp., Norwood, NJ, USA, 213--229. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=21842.28896

Digital Library

[40]

C. Powell. 2003. The Delphi technique: Myths and realities. Journal of Advanced Nursing 41, 4 (2003), 376--382.

[41]

N. Ragonis and M. Ben-Ari. 2005. A long-term investigation of the comprehension of OOP concepts by novices. Computer Science Education 15, 3 (2005), 203--221.

[42]

J. Rountree and N. Rountree. 2009. Issues Regarding Threshold Concepts in Computer Science. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 95 (ACE '09). Australian Computer Society, Inc., Wellington, New Zealand, 139--146. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1862712.1862733

Digital Library

[43]

Harold Sackman. 1974. Delphi assessment: Expert opinion, forecasting, and group process. Technical Report. DTIC Document.

[44]

K. Sanders, J. Boustedt, A. Eckerdal, R. McCartney, J.E Moström, L. Thomas, and C. Zander. 2012. Threshold Concepts and Threshold Skills in Computing. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER '12). ACM, Auckland, New Zealand, 23--30.

Digital Library

[45]

K. Sanders and R. McCartney. 2016. Threshold Concepts in Computing: Past, Present, and Future. In Proceedings of the 16th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling '16). ACM, Koli, Finland, 91--100.

Digital Library

[46]

O.J. Sandri. 2013. Threshold concepts, systems and learning for sustainability. Environmental Education Research 19, 6 (2013), 810--822.

[47]

E. Seagle and M. Iverson. 2002. Characteristics of the turfgrass industry in 2020: a Delphi study with implications for agricultural education programs. Journal of Southern Agricultural Research 52, 1 (2002), 1--13.

[48]

S. Sentance and A. Csizmadia. 2016. Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher's perspective. Education and Information Technologies (2016), 1--27.

Digital Library

[49]

D. Shinners-Kennedy and S.A. Fincher. 2013. Identifying Threshold Concepts: From Dead End to a New Direction. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER '13). ACM, San Diego, San California, USA, 9--18.

Digital Library

[50]

T Sirkiä. 2012. Recognizing Programming Misconceptions--An Analysis of the Data Collected from the UUhistle Program Simulation Tool. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Aalto University. Master Thesis.

[51]

D. Sleeman, R.T. Putnam, J. Baxter, and L. Kuspa. 1988. An introductory Pascal class: A case study of students' errors. In R. Mayer(Ed) Teaching and Learning Computer Programming: Multiple Research Perspectives. Norwood, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Asociates, 237--257.

[52]

L.A. Thomas, J. Boustedt, A. Eckerdal, R. McCartney, J.E. Moström, K. Sanders, and C. Zander. 2017. In the liminal space: software design as a threshold skill. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 12, 2 (2017), 333--351.

[53]

W. Vernon. 2009. A Delphi technique: A review. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation 16, 2 (2009), 69--76.

[54]

F. Woudenberg. 1991. An evaluation of Delphi. Technological forecasting and social change 40, 2 (1991), 131--150.

[55]

X. Yang, L. Zeng, and R. Zhang. 2012. Cloud Delphi method. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems 20, 1 (2012), 77--97.

[56]

B. Zwaneveld, J. Perrenet, and R. Bloo. 2016. Discussion of methods for threshold research and an application in computer science. In R. Land, J.H.F. Meyer, and M.T. Flanagan (Eds) Threshold Concepts in Practice. Springer, 269--284.

Cited By

Harper CBockmon RCooper SChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)Investigating Themes of Student-Generated AnalogiesProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617914(64-70)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617914
Frisbie RCaballero MDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Exploring Students' Computational Problem-solving ApproachesProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3545947.3576283(1337-1337)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545947.3576283
Ritschel NFronchetti FHolmes RGarcia RShepherd D(2022)Can guided decomposition help end-users write larger block-based programs? a mobile robot experimentProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35632966:OOPSLA2(233-258)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563296
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Computing Teachers' Perspectives on Threshold Concepts: Functions and Procedural Abstraction
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        CS1
      2. K-12 education

Recommendations

Transformative and Troublesome? Students' and Professional Programmers' Perspectives on Difficult Concepts in Programming

Programming skills are an increasingly desirable asset across disciplines; however, learning to program continues to be difficult for many students. To improve pedagogy, we need to better understand the concepts that students find difficult and which ...
Reflections on threshold concepts in computer programming and beyond
Koli Calling '10: Proceedings of the 10th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research

I comment on and extend prior work that searches for threshold concepts in computer programming. I argue that explicitly linking threshold concepts to Brunerian fundamental ideas gives structure to the ongoing debate on threshold concepts. Program ...
Threshold concepts and threshold skills in computing
ICER '12: Proceedings of the ninth annual international conference on International computing education research

Threshold concepts can be used to both organize disciplinary knowledge and explain why students have difficulties at certain points in the curriculum. Threshold concepts transform a student's view of the discipline; before being learned, they can block ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

WiPSCE '17: Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 2017

128 pages

ISBN:9781450354288

DOI:10.1145/3137065

Copyright © 2017 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 the author(s) 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].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 08 November 2017

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Conference

WiPSCE '17

WiPSCE '17: 12th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 8 - 10, 2017

Nijmegen, Netherlands

Acceptance Rates

WiPSCE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 16 of 37 submissions, 43%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

13
Total Citations
View Citations
391
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)39
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)5

Reflects downloads up to 01 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Harper CBockmon RCooper SChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)Investigating Themes of Student-Generated AnalogiesProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617914(64-70)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617914
Frisbie RCaballero MDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Exploring Students' Computational Problem-solving ApproachesProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3545947.3576283(1337-1337)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545947.3576283
Ritschel NFronchetti FHolmes RGarcia RShepherd D(2022)Can guided decomposition help end-users write larger block-based programs? a mobile robot experimentProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35632966:OOPSLA2(233-258)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563296
Nasir ULaiq M(2022)Threshold Concepts and Skills in Software Architecture: Instructors’ Perspectives2022 29th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC)10.1109/APSEC57359.2022.00076(547-553)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC57359.2022.00076
Kallia MCutts Q(2022)Conceptual development in early-years computing education: a grounded cognition and action based conceptual frameworkComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.214052733:4(485-511)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2022.2140527
Mäkiö EAzmat FAhmad BHarrison RColombo A(2021)T-CHAT educational framework for teaching cyber-physical system engineeringEuropean Journal of Engineering Education10.1080/03043797.2021.200887947:4(606-635)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2021.2008879
Edifor ESwenson AAiyenitaju O(2021)A Virtual Reality Framework for Upskilling in Computer Programming in the Business ContextAugmented Reality and Virtual Reality10.1007/978-3-030-68086-2_14(181-192)Online publication date: 5-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68086-2_14
Piwek PSavage SZhang JSherriff MHeckman SCutter PMonge A(2020)Challenges with Learning to Program and Problem SolveProceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3328778.3366838(494-499)Online publication date: 26-Feb-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3328778.3366838
Kallia MSentance S(2020)Threshold concepts, conceptions and skills: Teachers' experiences with students' engagement in functionsJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1249837:2(411-428)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12498
Makio EMakio JColombo AHarrison RAhmad BAzmat F(2020)Work in Progress: Task-centric Holistic Teaching Approach to Teaching Programming with Java2020 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON45650.2020.9125168(1487-1492)Online publication date: Apr-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON45650.2020.9125168
Show More Cited By

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents