This study examined high school students' knowledge about constructs in the BASIC programming language. A screening test was administered to ninety-six students, fifty-six of whom were interviewed. Students were asked to trace simple programs and predict their output. Errors in virtually all BASIC constructs we examined were observed, with many of the misconceptions arising from the application of knowledge and reasoning from informal domains to programming. It is argued that a lack of knowledge of basic features of programming language will prevent students from developing the higher-level cognitive skills that much programming instruction is intended to foster.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
LinnM. C., The Cognitive Consequences of Programming Instruction in Classrooms, Educational Researcher, 14:5, pp. 14–16, 25–29, 1985.
2.
WegnerP., Programming Languages: Information Structures and Machine Organization, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 84–91, 1968.
3.
DuBoulayB.O'SheaT., Teaching Novices Programming, in Computing Skills and the User Interface, CoombsM.AltyG. (eds.), Academic Press, London, pp. 147–200, 1981.
4.
SleemanD.PutnamR. T.BaxterJ. A.KuspaL. K., Pascal and High School Students: A Study of Errors, Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2:1, pp. 5–24, 1986.
5.
SleemanD., An Attempt to Understand Students' Understanding of BASIC Algebra, Cognitive Science, 8, pp. 387–412, 1984.
6.
VanLehnK., On the Representation of Procedures in Repair Theory, in The Development of Mathematical Thinking, GinsburgH. P. (ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 201–252, 1983.
7.
BonarJ.SolowayE., Pre-Programming Knowledge: A Major Source of Misconceptions in Novice Programmers, Human-Computer Interaction, 1:2, pp. 133–161, 1985.
8.
JoniS. A.SolowayE., But My Program Runs! Discourse Rules for Novice Programmers, Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2:1, pp. 95–128, 1986.
