Claudio Mirolo
ABSTRACT
Despite a general consensus on the difficulties faced to master recursion, a two-year investigation on the achievements in a 'functional-first' introductory course does not corroborate the hypothesis that students are more at ease with iteration than they are with recursion.
- R. Lister et al. Not seeing the forest for the trees: novice programmers and the SOLO taxonomy. In Proc. 11th ITiCSE, 2006. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- C. Mirolo. Learning (through) recursion: a multidimensional analysis of the competences achieved by CS1 students. In Proc. 15th ITiCSE, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- C. Starr et al. Bloom's taxonomy revisited: specifying assessable learning... In Proc. 39th SIGCSE, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Is iteration really easier to master than recursion: an investigation in a functional-first CS1 context
Recommendations
Recursion or Iteration: Does it Matter What Students Choose?
SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationRecursion and iteration are two key topics taught in introductory Computer Science. This is especially so for CS2 students, as CS2 is the course where recursion is typically taught and where control-flow concepts are solidified. When asked to solve a ...
Recursion vs. Iteration: An Empirical Study of Comprehension Revisited
SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationThis study compares differences in students' ability to comprehend recursive and iterative programs by replicating a 1996 study. These studies are interesting for the following reasons: (1) there have been few studies on the comprehension of recursive ...
Is iteration really easier to learn than recursion for CS1 students?
ICER '12: Proceedings of the ninth annual international conference on International computing education researchThere is general consensus that recursion is difficult to learn, which may be meant to imply that novice students are more at ease with iteration --- probably a widespread perception of students themselves. However, three years of investigation in a ...
Comments