Investigating Novice Programming Learners' Flexibility in Using For-Loops Versus While-Loops

• In Event: Postsecondary Learners in Computing and Engineering Education

Abstract

Unlike experts, Novice learners cannot flexibly apply knowledge to new situations. In a traditional programming curriculum, novice learners learn abstract concepts in a sequential order that prevents them from forming a robust schema through comparing and mapping between concepts. In this paper, we first explored novice programmers’ flexibility in choosing between two common looping strategies (for-loops and while-loops) in C++ language. We found their flexibility was positively correlated with problem-solving performance. In a follow-up study, we designed an instructional intervention based on insights from the analogical mapping literature to teach the similarities between two loop concepts. Although Study 1’s result was replicated, we failed to find an advantage of direct instruction on multiple strategies in producing efficient solutions.

Authors

• Alice Xu, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Icy Yunyi Zhang, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• James W. Stigler, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author