research-article

The effect of previous programming experience on the learning of scenario-based programming

Authors:

Giora Alexandron,

David HarelAuthors Info & Claims

Koli Calling '12: Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research

Pages 151 - 159

https://doi.org/10.1145/2401796.2401821

Published: 15 November 2012 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper we present qualitative findings on the influence of previous programming experience on the learning of the visual, scenario-based programming language of live sequence charts (LSC). Our findings suggest that previous programming experience leads programmers not only to misunderstand or misinterpret concepts that are new to them, but that it can also lead them to actively distort the new concepts in a way that enables them to use familiar programming patterns, rather than exploiting the new ones to good effect. Eventually, this leads to poor usage of some of the new concepts, and also to the creation of programs that behaved differently from what the programmers expected. We also show that previous programming experience can affect programmers' attitude towards new programming concepts. Attitude is known to have an effect on performance. Since LSC and its underlying concepts are of growing popularity in the software engineering community, it is interesting to investigate its learning process. Furthermore, we believe that our findings can shed light on some of the ways by which previous programming experience influences the learning of new programming concepts and paradigms.

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Index Terms

The effect of previous programming experience on the learning of scenario-based programming
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
2. Software and its engineering

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Koli Calling '12: Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research

November 2012

187 pages

ISBN:9781450317955

DOI:10.1145/2401796

Conference Chairs:
Mikko-Jussi Laakso
University of Turku
,
Robert McCartney
University of Connecticut

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Univ. Eastern Finland: University of Eastern Finland
Tampere University of Technology
Univ. Turku: University of Turku
Aalto University

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SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 15 November 2012

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Koli Calling '12

Sponsor:

Univ. Eastern Finland
Univ. Turku

Koli Calling '12: 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research

November 15 - 18, 2012

Koli, Finland

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Knox MTang CBisgin HMani MUludag S(2024)Understanding the Transfer of Knowledge in Introductory Programming Classes2024 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE61694.2024.10893318(1-9)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE61694.2024.10893318
Das TNath NAcharyya KChakraborty SChatterjee P(2023)Hardware and Software Cyber Security ToolsAI Tools for Protecting and Preventing Sophisticated Cyber Attacks10.4018/978-1-6684-7110-4.ch005(109-131)Online publication date: 26-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-7110-4.ch005
Flores PRivas ITorres J(2023)Difficulties in Object-Oriented Design and its relationship with Abstraction: A Systematic Review of LiteratureProceedings of the 4th European Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3651640.3651643(1-13)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
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Alexandron GArmoni MGordon MHarel D(2017)Teaching Scenario-Based Programming: An Additional Paradigm for the High School Computer Science Curriculum, Part 2Computing in Science & Engineering10.1109/MCSE.2017.397116219:6(64-71)Online publication date: Nov-2017
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