Students’ Conceptions of Programming in the Context of Game Design

Abstract

AbstractSeveral attempts have been made to understand novice programmers’ difficulties and misconceptions in introductory programming. Most studies in the field of students’ conceptions of (object-oriented) programming have only focused on identifying (mis-)conceptions without including popular contexts like game design. Since digital games are an important part of students’ everyday life, exploring students’ conceptions of digital games and their programming may give some recognisable patterns which might be helpful for teaching. This paper presents a brief overview of an empirical qualitative pilot study with the aim to investigate undergraduate students’ conceptions of (object-oriented) programming in the context of the game Tetris®. For this study, we interviewed four students who were 19 to 21 years old, and analysed the transcripts using qualitative text analysis. Moreover, an online survey provided qualitative data from 25 participants. The first findings show that students’ conceptions are based on the rules of the game, and first indications about influence factors could be found. As a result of these investigations, implications were made for the future main study.KeywordsConceptionsComputer scienceGame designDigital gamesProgrammingOOPQualitative text analysis