Abstract
Understanding the misconception of students is critical in that it identifies the reasons of errors students make and allows instructors to design instructions accordingly. This study investigated the mental models of programming concepts held by pre-service teachers who were novice in programming. In an introductory programming course, students were asked to solve problems that could be solved by utilizing conditional statements. They developed solution plans pseudo-code including a simplified natural language, symbols, diagrams, and so on. Sixteen solution plans of three different types of problems were analyzed. As a result, the students’ egocentric and insufficient programming concepts were identified in terms of the misuse of variables, redundancy of codes, and weak strategic knowledge. The results revealed that the students had difficulty designing solution plans that could be executed by computers. They needed instructional supports to master how to express their solution plans in the way computers run. Problem driven instructional designs for novice students were discussed.
Highlights
Computing is becoming a fundamental part of our daily lives, and it has changed our education system as well
Students’ solution plans of each problem were analyzed to reveal their mental models utilizing the concepts of programming and computational thinking to solve the problem
This study identified the novice programmers’ egocentric mental models of computational problem solving in terms of the misuse of variables, redundancy of codes, and weak strategic knowledge
Summary
Computing is becoming a fundamental part of our daily lives, and it has changed our education system as well. The problem solving requires scientific activities that include, designing systems, understanding human behaviors, recognizing patterns, generating principles, and so on (Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982; Newell & Simon, 1972). These critical, but not acquirable activities can be facilitated through “computational thinking” that emphasizes “Ways to Think Like a Computer Scientist” 9 out of 10 parents surveyed want their child to learn computer science, only 40% of middle and high schools teach computer programming (Google & Gallup, 2015). Even when education administrators want to provide CS in K-12, there are not enough qualified teachers available (Google & Gallup, 2016)
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