Using Visual Programming Games to Study Novice Programmers

A Case Study of Novice Programmers on Parallel Programming Models

Programming Pathways: A Technique for Analyzing Novice Programmers' Learning Trajectories

Introductory computer science courses are a valuable resource to students of all disciplines. While we often look at students’ end products to judge their proficiency, little analysis is done on the most integral aspect of learning to programming, the process. We also have a hard time quantifying how students’ programming changes over the course of a semester. In order to address these we show ...

Visualizing Roles of Variables to Novice Programmers

Many students learning to write computer programs encounter considerable difficulties. For novices, one of the key problems is in understanding how the very basic programming constructs work. In this paper, we concentrate on visualizing the role of a variable, i.e., the dynamic character of a variable embodied by the sequence of its successive values as related to other variables. We present a ...

Enhancing Adaptivity and Intelligent Tutoring in Distributed Pair Programming Systems to Support Novice Programmers

Pair programming is a computer programming technique where two programmers share one computer for software development. When applied in an educational context, pair programming has been reported as an effective teaching method, mainly improving student satisfaction, retention rates and program quality. Several systems have been developed to cover the need for pair programming over distance. We ...

A Categorization of Novice Programmers: A Cluster Analysis Study

Beginning software engineering students often lack skills necessary to perform efficient programming work, such as comprehending or debugging program code. To facilitate the needs of students having different skill levels, teachers should be able to recognize the specific student groups. Bloom’s Taxonomy defines educational objectives for the development of students’ cognitive skills. This pape...