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Mental models, consistency and programming aptitude
Bornat, R., Dehnadi, S. and Simon
Learning to program is notoriously difficult. Substantial
failure rates plague introductory programming
courses the world over, and have increased rather than
decreased over the years. Despite a great deal of research
into teaching methods and student responses,
there have been to date no strong predictors of success
in learning to program.
Two years ago we appeared to have discovered an
exciting and enigmatic new predictor of success in a first programming course. We now report that after
six experiments, involving more than 500 students at
six institutions in three countries, the predictive effect
of our test has failed to live up to that early promise.
We discuss the strength of the effects that have been
observed and the reasons for some apparent failures
of prediction. |
Cite as: Bornat, R., Dehnadi, S. and Simon (2008). Mental models, consistency and programming aptitude. In Proc. Tenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2008), Wollongong, NSW, Australia. CRPIT, 78. Simon and Hamilton, M., Eds. ACS. 53-62. |
(from crpit.com)
(local if available)
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