Although programming is often learned through formal instruction or self-paced tutorials, informal learning, for example, through publicly available online documentation, is also a significant resource for skill development among novices. However, many novices struggle to extract useful information from documentation. This work aims to answer two…

Background and Context: Gender research shows that women are better at reading comprehension. Other studies indicate a lower tendency in women to choose STEM professions. Since data modeling requires reading skills and also belongs in the areas of information systems and computer science (STEM professions), these findings provoked our curiosity.…

It is widely recognized that debugging is challenging for novice programmers and, as such, computing educators and researchers have called for explicit debugging instruction. Debugging requires various knowledge and skills, and different students may show different strengths and weaknesses. An understanding of such individual differences is…

Background: Coding has become an integral part of STEM education. However, novice learners face difficulties in processing codes within embedded structures (also termed nested structures). This study aimed to investigate the cognitive mechanism underlying the processing of embedded coding structures based on hierarchical complexity theory, which…

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…

Background and Context: Research in programming education seems to show that hands-on writing at the keyboard is beneficial for learning, but we lack an explanation of why that is and an underlying theory to anchor that explanation. Objective: The first objective is to lay out a theoretical foundation for understanding the learning situation when…

A posttest-only control group experimental design compared novice Arduino programmers who developed their own programs (self-programming group, n = 17) with novice Arduino programmers who used ChatGPT 3.5 to write their programs (ChatGPT-programming group, n = 16) on the dependent variables of programming scores, interest in Arduino programming,…

Background and context: Emotions are ubiquitous in academic settings and affect learning strategies, motivation to persevere, and academic outcomes, however they have not figured prominently in research on learning to program at the university level. Objective: To summarize the current knowledge available on the effect of emotions on students…

Background and Context: Current programming learning research often compares novices and experienced programmers, leaving early learning stages and emotional and cognitive states under-explored. Objective: Our study investigates relationships between cognitive and emotional states and learning performance in early stage programming learners with…

Providing appropriate feedback is important when learning to program. However, it is still unclear how different feedback strategies affect learning outcomes in programming. This study designed four different two-step programming feedback strategies and explored their impact on novice programmers' academic achievement, learning motivations, and…

Debugging is the most difficult part of programming for novices. Through comparative experiments, this paper compares the differences between novices and the experts in the debugging process from the perspective of the frequency of each debugging skill behavior and the connection of each behavior. The study find that there is a difference in the…

Analogical reasoning is considered to be a critical cognitive skill in programming. However, it has been rarely studied in a block-based programming context, especially involving both virtual and physical objects. In this multi-case study, we examined how novice programming learners majoring in early childhood education used analogical reasoning…

Background and Context: Students learning the C programming language struggle to debug, and to understand the runtime behaviour of, their programs. Objective: We examine a tool that combines several novice-focused error detection, program visualization, and debugging techniques, to investigate which features students use in real study sessions,…

Novice programmers need well-designed instruction and assessment informed by research and critical perspectives to conquer the historical challenges associated with completing introductory computer programming courses successfully. These issues include high dropout and failure rates, the struggle to acquire and retain basic programming knowledge,…

Background: With the increasing interdisciplinarity between computer science (CS) and other fields, a growing number of non-CS students are embracing programming. However, there is a gap in research concerning differences in programming learning between CS and non-CS students. Previous studies predominantly relied on outcome-based assessments,…