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    Foreign Literature

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    Angelica May Zaldivar
    The document discusses several studies on the difficulties students face in learning programming. It notes that while some argue poor performance is due to low aptitude, studies found no strong predictors of success. Programming involves multiple interconnected skills that build on each other, from basic syntax to complex structures. It also notes programming involves multiple processes, from specification to algorithm to code, and the algorithm design is the most difficult but important step. Teaching sometimes focuses too much on syntax over higher-level skills like algorithm design.

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    Foreign Literature

    Uploaded by

    Angelica May Zaldivar
    7K views4 pages
    The document discusses several studies on the difficulties students face in learning programming. It notes that while some argue poor performance is due to low aptitude, studies found no strong predictors of success. Programming involves multiple interconnected skills that build on each other, from basic syntax to complex structures. It also notes programming involves multiple processes, from specification to algorithm to code, and the algorithm design is the most difficult but important step. Teaching sometimes focuses too much on syntax over higher-level skills like algorithm design.

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    The document discusses several studies on the difficulties students face in learning programming. It notes that while some argue poor performance is due to low aptitude, studies found no strong predictors of success. Programming involves multiple interconnected skills that build on each other, from basic syntax to complex structures. It also notes programming involves multiple processes, from specification to algorithm to code, and the algorithm design is the most difficult but important step. Teaching sometimes focuses too much on syntax over higher-level skills like algorithm design.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    7K views4 pages

    Foreign Literature

    Uploaded by

    Angelica May Zaldivar
    The document discusses several studies on the difficulties students face in learning programming. It notes that while some argue poor performance is due to low aptitude, studies found no strong predictors of success. Programming involves multiple interconnected skills that build on each other, from basic syntax to complex structures. It also notes programming involves multiple processes, from specification to algorithm to code, and the algorithm design is the most difficult but important step. Teaching sometimes focuses too much on syntax over higher-level skills like algorithm design.

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    of 4

    CHAPTER II

    REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

    This chapter presents the review of the related literatures and studies

    regarding topic about Difficulties encountered in C++programming language of

    sophomore students of Polytechnic University of the Philippines Santa Rosa

    Campus. At the outset of this study, the researchers are engaged in gathering

    information related to the research studies and literatures that have bearing and

    significance to the study.

    Foreign Literature

    Tony Jenkins (2002) said that it is sometimes argued that the students

    who nd programming dicult are simply those for whom programming is

    dicult. He also stated that there is nothing inherently difficult in the subject; the

    argument is simply that some students have no aptitude for programming. The

    required skills often cited are problem solving ability and mathematical ability.

    The link between mathematics ability and programming is widely accepted,

    although its empirical demonstration is questionable. In addition, there is little

    evidence that either has any signicant eect. A recent study in Ireland (Pat

    Byrne and Gerry Lyons, 2001) has once hinted at some connection between

    programming aptitude and experience in mathematics and problem solving. An

    experiment at the University of Leeds (John Davy and Tony Jenkins, 1999)

    designed to stream a programming class based on the results of an aptitude test


    aimed at these two skills but the nal results of the course showed no signicant

    correlation between the calculated aptitude and the nal grade. Other studies

    (General E. Evans and Mark G. Simkin, 1989) have shown that no demographic

    factor is a strong predictor of success in programming.

    Moreover, Dianne Hagan and Selby Markham (2000) said that it certainly

    helps to have some experience of programming before starting a programming

    course but this is not the same thing as aptitude. There exists programming

    aptitude tests (PAT) produced by IBM, but the evidence for their effectiveness is

    inconclusive at best (Lawrence J. Mazlack, 1980). If it is not possible to measure

    aptitude for programming in some convenient way, and if it is possible that

    "aptitude" for programming does not even exist, the focus for the understanding

    the difficulty of learning to program must turn in a more cognitive view of the

    problem lies in the subject itself (T. Jenkins, 2002).

    Multiple Skills

    According to Kathryn D. Sloane and Marcia C. Linn (1988), programming,

    then, is not a single skill. It is also not a simple set of skills; the skills form a

    hierarchy, and a programmer will be using many of them at any point in time. As

    cited by C. Bereiter and E. Ng (1991), a student faced with learning a hierarchy

    of skills will generally learn the lower level skills first, and will then progress

    upwards. In the case of coding (one small part of the skill of programming) this

    implies that students will learn the basics of syntax first and then gradually move

    on to semantics, structure, and finally style. Teachers will be all too familiar with
    the student who produces programs with no indentation, intending to "indent it all

    later", or without any comments, content to add these later (and only then

    because there are marks for the comments in the assessment). No experienced

    programmer would work in this way, and these are bad habits to fall into, but this

    is an inevitable side effect of the order in which programming skills are learned.

    This approach to learning is often reinforced by lectures that concentrate on the

    details of syntax, and by textbooks that adopt much the same approach. This

    leads to the student who hopes to gain an understanding of programming and

    plans to achieve this by reading a textbook. Programming is learned by

    programming, not from books (Tony Jenkins, 2001).

    Multiple Processes

    Programming is not only more than a single skill; it also involves more

    than one distinct process. At the simplest level the specification must be

    translated into an algorithm, which is then translated into program code. In

    experienced programmers it is also possible to identify an intermediate process

    whereby the algorithm is mapped to something resembling a "recipe" for the

    programme, based on previous experience (Katherine McKeithen, Judith S.

    Reitman, Henry H. Reuter and Stephen C. Hirtle, 1981).

    According to Tony Jenkins (2001), the most difficult part of multiple

    process of Programming is first, translating the specification into the algorithm.

    This is also the most important, as it is crucial that a correct and efficient

    algorithm is used as the basis of any coding. Given a correct algorithm the other
    processes are essentially mechanical. Therefore, a student must master three

    distinct processes. He also mentioned that teaching and learning, however, can

    concentrate on the low level issues of syntax at the expense of the higher level,

    more complex, and process of designing an algorithm. Worse, any consideration

    of algorithm design and efficiency can be relegated to another, apparently

    unrelated, part of the course. In any case there is surely little point in lecturing

    students on syntax when they have no idea of where and how to apply it.

    Teachers will be familiar with students who can follow the lectures in the

    programming course, who can dissect and understand programs, but who are

    totally incapable of writing their own program. They have not mastered all the

    processes; they can code, but they cannot produce an algorithm.

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