This study examined the beliefs constructed by college students enrolled in an introductory course in Pascal programming regarding the larger programming process, including design, debugging, testing, and maintenance, as well as coding. Students rated programs on the criteria of ease of comprehension, ease of debugging and testing, ease of maintenance, modification, and extension, and quality of overall design; they also justified their ratings orally. These same interviews were repeated with expert programmers as the participants. The students' and experts' justifications showed that students noticed the advantages of avoiding complexity, while experts noticed the advantages of managing complexity. This article discusses these results in light of the constructivist framework and suggests implications for instruction.
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