Contribution: Most work on languages in computing education currently focuses on non-native speakers. In contrast, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this article is the first response to the call for research on terms that takes into account the terms used by novices in their language. Background: Terms are key factors in communication,…

Prior studies in the Computer Science education literature have illustrated that novices make many mistakes in composing SQL queries. Query formulation proves to be difficult for students. Only recently, some headway was made towards understanding why SQL leads to so many mistakes, by uncovering student misconceptions. In this article, we shed new…

Concurrency is often perceived as difficult by students. One reason for this may be due to the fact that abstractions used in concurrent programs leave more situations undefined compared to sequential programs (e.g., in what order statements are executed), which makes it harder to create a proper mental model of the execution environment. Students…

Object-oriented programming distinguishes between instance attributes and methods and class attributes and methods, annotated by the "static" modifier. Novices encounter difficulty understanding the means and implications of "static" attributes and methods. The paper has two outcomes: (a) a detailed classification of aspects of…

Concurrency is a complex to learn topic that is becoming more and more relevant, such that many undergraduate Computer Science curricula are introducing it in introductory programming courses. This paper investigates the combined use of Sonic Pi and Team-Based Learning to mitigate the difficulties in early exposure to concurrency. Sonic Pi, a…

Programming skills are increasingly important to the current digital economy, yet these skills have long been regarded as challenging to acquire. A central challenge in learning programming skills involves the simultaneous use of multiple component skills. This article investigates why students struggle with integrating component skills--a…

Aim/Purpose: The study examined types of errors made by novice programmers in different Java concepts with students of different ability levels in programming as well as the perceived causes of such errors. Background: To improve code writing and debugging skills, efforts have been made to taxonomize programming errors and their causes. However,…

The Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) technique is nowadays the most popular programming technique among tertiary education institutions. However, learning OOP is a cognitively demanding task for undergraduate students. Several difficulties and misconceptions have been recorded in the literature for both OOP concepts and languages, mainly Java.…

This article presents a study aimed at examining the novice student answers in an introductory programming final e-exam to identify misconceptions and types of errors. Our study used the Delphi concept inventory to identify student misconceptions and skill, rule, and knowledge-based errors approach to identify the types of errors made by novices…

Computer programming is an important skill for engineering and computer science students. However, teaching and learning programming concepts and skills has been recognized as a great challenge to both teachers and students. Therefore, the development of effective learning strategies and environments for programming courses has become an important…

This study examines how Information Systems Engineering School students on the verge of their graduation understand the mechanism of exception handling. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: we construct a questionnaire aimed at examining students' level of understanding concerning exceptions; we classify and analyse the students'…

The software industry needs well-trained software designers and one important aspect of software design is the ability to model software designs visually and understand what visual models represent. However, previous research indicates that software design is a difficult task to many students. This article reports empirical findings from a…

This study discusses and presents various strategies employed by novice programmers concerning exception handling. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: we provide an analysis tool to measure the level of assimilation of exception handling mechanism; we present and analyse strategies to handle exceptions; we present and analyse…

Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is not an easy subject to learn. There are many challenges confronting students when studying OOAD. Students have particular difficulty abstracting real-world problems within the context of OOAD. They are unable to effectively build object-oriented (OO) models from the problem domain because they…

Debugging is often difficult and frustrating for novices. Yet because students typically debug outside the classroom and often in isolation, instructors rarely have the opportunity to closely observe students while they debug. This paper describes the details of an exploratory study of the debugging skills and behaviors of contemporary novice Java…