This report describes a curriculum for the transfer of problem solving skills from the LOGO computer programming environment to the real world. This curriculum is being developed in the Calgary, Alberta, Canada schools for children in grades 1-6. The completed curriculum will consist of six units, one to be taught at each grade level: (1)…

Students with a semester or more of instruction often display remarkable naivety about the language that they have been studying and often prove unable to manage simple programming problems. The main purpose of this study was to create a set of problem-plan-program types for the BASIC programming language to help high school students build plans…

This study examined the effectiveness of a metacourse consisting of eight lessons interspersed over a semester-long beginning course in BASIC and aimed at providing mental models, problem-solving strategies, key concepts, and other heuristic structures. The experimental group consisted of 6 teachers who taught 9 classes of a total of 132 high…

Describes a study which compared the instructional effectiveness of a team-based, peer-review approach to teaching programing skills to secondary school students, with that of a traditional approach. The discussion covers students' attitudes and programing skills development resulting from the implementation of the experimental approach. (Nine…

This document provides both a brief progress report for the Autonomous Classroom Computer Environments for Learning (ACCEL) project and an annotated bibliography of publications from this project, the Computers and Problem Solving Project, and other recent publications from the ACCCEL (Accessing the Cognitive Consequences of Computer Environments…

Describes study that was conducted to determine whether instruction in computer programing using Logo would be more effective than other activities in decreasing mathematics anxiety scores among eighth grade students. Treatment of experimental and control groups is explained, implications for teachers are discussed, and future research is…

Students in certain French language schools in eastern Ontario took part in this initial experiment in the teaching of computer and electronic programing at the elementary school level. This project had three objectives for optimizing the pedagogical impact of these first attempts at teaching programing: (1) to describe the context of this initial…

Unfortunately, much of the research devoted to Logo and problem solving has not supported the claim that Logo provides an environment in which children will develop problem solving skills, but the literature suggests that direct instruction and mediated Logo programming practice can result in the acquisition and transfer of certain problem solving…

This study manipulated the timing and control of error feedback in problem solving and examined their effects on skill acquisition by 40 undergraduate students learning to program in the computer language Lisp under four error feedback conditions. These four conditions included two types of symbol-by-symbol feedback that vary in content, a…

This paper discusses the results of research on learning LOGO programming language by two groups of fifth grade students who were taught using either a structured tutorial mode or an unstructured discovery method. Previous results showed mastery differences between the structured and unstructured teaching methods with the results favoring the…

Summarizes results of a University of Nebraska study on effects of different teaching methods on student performance in a computer literacy course for business administration students. Merits and weaknesses of the large class approach--the more successful method--are discussed, and academic achievement as a function of gender is analyzed. (MBR)

This study investigated the cognitive benefits of learning how to program by determining the degree of cognitive transfer of programming skills at a construct level to solving analogous problems in other domains. Subjects, who were students enrolled in four sections of the beginning Pascal programming course and two sections of a calculus course,…

Describes a study conducted in a Hong Kong primary school that compared the effects of learning LOGO programing with a process-oriented approach and a content-oriented approach to problem-solving skills. Transfer of training to nonprograming problem solving is discussed, and instruments used to assess students are explained. (33 references) (LRW)

Describes four research studies that deal with students and computers. Three are programing studies that examine the effects of computer programing on problem solving and other cognitive skills of students in grades four through eight; the fourth study analyzes characteristics of students who entered a programing competition. (LRW)

Describes results of a meta-analysis that was performed to synthesize existing research on the effects of computer programing on cognitive outcomes. Effect size is used to evaluate studies that used experimental and control groups to assess the relationship between computer programing and cognitive skills, and outcome measures are discussed. (79…