Ways of Thinking and Practicing in Introductory Programming
Date and time:
12/09/2008, 11:00
Location:
Room H7.84, Building H, Level 7, Caulfield Campus
Presenters:
Ms Anna Eckerdal
Abstract:
In computer programming education it is widely acknowledged that students learn not only through theory but largely by practicing. It is however also widely reported that many students have large problems in their learning, despite great efforts during many decades to improve programming education.
The research presented in this paper highlights and problematize the interaction between theory and practice in novice programming education. To this end the present research uses the WTP concept, Ways of Thinking and Practicing. ”Thinking” is discussed in terms of students' learning of concepts, while ”Practice” is discussed as common novice programming activities.
Based on two empirical studies it is argued that students often experience the practice as difficult to learn as the theory, and that there exists a mutual and complex dependency between theory and practice in the learning process. One can not be learned without the other, and any of them can become an obstacle that hinders further learning. Evidence points to the need to simultaneously research theory and practice and the relation between the two in the learning process.
The present research proposes a way to research the role of practice in relation to students' learning of concepts. Results from a phenomenographic analysis on novice programming students' understanding of some central concepts in object-oriented programming are related to common novice programming activities. It is shown that programming activities at different levels of proficiency corresponds to understanding of concepts at qualitatively different levels. Activities at a certain level of proficiency can hardly be meaningfully carried out without a certain level of conceptual understanding. And vice versa; certain aspects of the concepts are difficult for students to discern if a corresponding level of practical proficiency is not reached.
The results of the present research can to some extent explain why activities, performed e.g. in the lab, do not necessarily lead to deepened conceptual understanding, and why conceptual understanding do not necessarily lead to a higher level of skillfulness in programming education. Moreover, our findings give implications for how to design introductory computer
programming courses so that learning of concepts and learning of practice could mutually support each other, with a potential to lead to a better learning outcome.
Speaker biographies:
Anna Eckerdal has a Master of Science Education from Uppsala University. She currently holds a position as a lecturer at Uppsala University, and will finish her PhD in Computer Science Education in December this year. Eckerdal's research interest is on novice students' learning of object-oriented programming. Her main research approach has been phenomenography. Beside this, she has investigated Threshold Concepts in computer science with an international research group from Sweden, Wales, and the United States.
