article

Which pointer errors do students make?

Authors:

Bruce Adcock,

Paolo Bucci,

Wayne D. Heym,

Joseph E. Hollingsworth,

Timothy Long,

Bruce W. WeideAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 39, Issue 1

Pages 9 - 13

https://doi.org/10.1145/1227504.1227317

Published: 07 March 2007 Publication History

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Abstract

A model and a taxonomy to characterize pointer manipulations are introduced, along with an instrumentation technology that leverages them to provide students with immediate reports of pointer errors in C++ programs. Data collected from CS2 student assignments show that the vast majority of student pointer errors either would not have been noticed at all, or would have been detected only much later in execution, if this infrastructure were not used. Possible applications of the underlying technology--both to conduct long-term educational research into students' understanding of pointers, and to improve pedagogy directly--are discussed.

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Cited By

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Adam Basigie M(2022)THE IMPACT OF COMBINING FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS AND WORKED EXAMPLES IN PROGRAM VISUALIZATION TOOL ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ HELD MENTAL MODELS OF POINTERS’ VALUE AND ADDRESS ASSIGNMENTEducation & Pedagogy Journal10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64(53-64)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64
Craig MPetersen A(2016)Student difficulties with pointer concepts in CProceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference10.1145/2843043.2843348(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2843043.2843348
Cetin ISendurur ESendurur P(2014)Assessing the Impact of Meta-Cognitive Training on Students' Understanding of Introductory Programming ConceptsJournal of Educational Computing Research10.2190/EC.50.4.d50:4(507-524)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2014
https://doi.org/10.2190/EC.50.4.d
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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 39, Issue 1

March 2007

581 pages

ISSN:0097-8418

DOI:10.1145/1227504

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCSE '07: Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2007
634 pages
ISBN:1595933611
DOI:10.1145/1227310
General Chairs:
Ingrid Russell
University of Hartford
,
Susan Haller
SUNY Potsdam
,
Program Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Susan Rodger
Duke University

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

Publication History

Published: 07 March 2007

Published in SIGCSE Volume 39, Issue 1

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Adam Basigie M(2022)THE IMPACT OF COMBINING FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS AND WORKED EXAMPLES IN PROGRAM VISUALIZATION TOOL ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ HELD MENTAL MODELS OF POINTERS’ VALUE AND ADDRESS ASSIGNMENTEducation & Pedagogy Journal10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64(53-64)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64
Craig MPetersen A(2016)Student difficulties with pointer concepts in CProceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference10.1145/2843043.2843348(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2843043.2843348
Cetin ISendurur ESendurur P(2014)Assessing the Impact of Meta-Cognitive Training on Students' Understanding of Introductory Programming ConceptsJournal of Educational Computing Research10.2190/EC.50.4.d50:4(507-524)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2014
https://doi.org/10.2190/EC.50.4.d
Sorva JLister R(2007)Students' understandings of storing objectsProceedings of the Seventh Baltic Sea Conference on Computing Education Research - Volume 8810.5555/2449323.2449337(127-135)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2449323.2449337
Brieven GBaum VDonnet B(2024)Tartare: Automatic Generation of C Pointer Statements and FeedbackProceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3636243.3636264(192-201)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3636243.3636264
Jerkins JRawajfih YRay D(2023)Common C++ Pointer Misconceptions: Essence and TreatmentJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3636988.363700739:3(76-85)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3636988.3637007
Rong WXu TSun ZSun ZOuyang YXiong Z(2023)An Object Tuple Model for Understanding Pointer and Array in C LanguageIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.323602766:4(318-329)Online publication date: Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3236027
Heinsen Egan MMcDonald C(2020)An evaluation of SeeC: a tool designed to assist novice C programmers with program understanding and debuggingComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2020.177703431:3(340-373)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2020
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2020.1777034
McGill MPollock IScharlau BMcDermott RPears ASabin M(2019)If Memory ServesProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3304221.3325550(241-242)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2019
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McGill MJohnson CAtlas JBouchard DMessom CPollock IScott MSheard JKorhonen A(2018)If Memory ServesProceedings of the 2017 ITiCSE Conference on Working Group Reports10.1145/3174781.3174783(25-46)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2018
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