Article

Second language acquisition and CS1

Author:

Anne Gates ApplinAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 174 - 178

https://doi.org/10.1145/364447.364579

Published: 01 February 2001 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical study of the relative effectiveness of two teaching methods used in CS1 classrooms. While the teaching methods are nothing new, the results of the study are an important contribution to the body of computer science education literature. The research design should also be of interest in that it demonstrates how statistical significance can be achieved with a relatively small sample by using the naturally occurring groups that we have as course sections.The teaching methods studied here were having students write programming assignments from scratch versus having them add to or modify existing well-written, well-documented programs. The results are perhaps not surprising. After controlling for certain factors, the statistical analysis showed that students who added to program templates as programming assignments scored better on the comprehensive examination and had higher overall course averages than their counter parts who wrote programs from scratch. This idea is firmly based in cognitive psychology and teachers of language use a similar method extensively. Reading increases vocabulary, aids in concept retention, and improves writing skill.

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Cited By

Lister RLeaney J(2003)First year programmingProceedings of the fifth Australasian conference on Computing education - Volume 2010.5555/858403.858430(221-230)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/858403.858430
Lister RLeaney J(2003)Introductory programming, criterion-referencing, and bloomACM SIGCSE Bulletin10.1145/792548.61195435:1(143-147)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/792548.611954
Lister RLeaney JGrissom SKnox DJoyce DDann W(2003)Introductory programming, criterion-referencing, and bloomProceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/611892.611954(143-147)Online publication date: 19-Feb-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/611892.611954
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Second language acquisition and CS1

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education

February 2001

456 pages

ISBN:1581133294

DOI:10.1145/364447

Chairmen:
Henry Walker
Grinnell College
,
Renée McCauley
College of Charleston
,
Judith Gersting
Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo
,
Ingrid Russell
Univ. of Hartford

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 33, Issue 1
March 2001
432 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/366413
Editor:
John Impagliazzo
103 Hofstra Univ., Hempstead, NY
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2001 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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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 01 February 2001

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Lister RLeaney J(2003)First year programmingProceedings of the fifth Australasian conference on Computing education - Volume 2010.5555/858403.858430(221-230)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/858403.858430
Lister RLeaney J(2003)Introductory programming, criterion-referencing, and bloomACM SIGCSE Bulletin10.1145/792548.61195435:1(143-147)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/792548.611954
Lister RLeaney JGrissom SKnox DJoyce DDann W(2003)Introductory programming, criterion-referencing, and bloomProceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/611892.611954(143-147)Online publication date: 19-Feb-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/611892.611954
Cilliers CCalitz AGreyling J(2005)The effect of integrating an Iconic programming notation into CS1ACM SIGCSE Bulletin10.1145/1151954.106747837:3(108-112)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1151954.1067478
Cilliers CCalitz AGreyling JCunha JFleischman WProulx VLourenço J(2005)The effect of integrating an Iconic programming notation into CS1Proceedings of the 10th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education10.1145/1067445.1067478(108-112)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1067445.1067478

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