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A Study of Tracing and Writing Performance of Novice Students in Introductory Programming

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Software Engineering and Computer Systems (ICSECS 2011)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 181))

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Abstract

The tasks of programming include complex knowledge and skills that is, from understanding problems to evaluating validity of program. Novice students often face difficulties in learning programming due to various issues and the nature of the subject, which can be vague and invisible. A survey was conducted on 294 students from two universities to study novices’ problems in dealing with tracking the logical flow and writing a simple code. The average score for tracking and writing skills were quite disappointing. Students were only able to master the static part of programming knowledge. They lacked the knowledge in understanding and tracing the dynamic behavior of the program. This research attempts to propose a model to shift the internal working memory load of students through integrated visualization tools that can reveal the dynamic behavior of programs and related concepts that appear in each level of program abstractions.

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Affandy, Herman, N.S., Salam, S.B., Noersasongko, E. (2011). A Study of Tracing and Writing Performance of Novice Students in Introductory Programming. In: Zain, J.M., Wan Mohd, W.M.b., El-Qawasmeh, E. (eds) Software Engineering and Computer Systems. ICSECS 2011. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 181. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22203-0_48

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22203-0_48

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22202-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22203-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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