What to Tune in Little Programmers?

Abstract

PCF10 Sub-theme: Inspiring Innovations // Learning a programming language is not an easy task for beginners. Due to this, teachers always struggle hard to teach programming. To teach programming to beginners, teachers primarily focus on programming language syntax and its application to solve problems. Online programming courses also focus on the same aspect. In fact, automatic programming language learning tools and platforms work on the same concept. This gives a false illusion that programming is all about syntax memorization and application. In reality, the art of programming deals with many other parameters. This research presents the minimal set of parameters needed to tune beginner level programmers. This parameter set consists of eleven programming skills given below. // 1. Concept Understanding Skill 2. Concept Application Skill 3. Innovation Skill 4. Logic Skill 5. Structure Understanding Skill 6. Syntax Understanding Skill 7. Syntax Application Skill 8. Structure Application Skill 9. Problem Solving Time Skill 10. Overall Programming Performance Skill 11. Error Handling Skill // We conducted a Delphine study to come up with the above-listed parameters. This research also finds a pairwise correlation between some of these parameters. These correlations show many interesting trends. For example, concept understanding skill shows a weak correlation with most skills, including application skill. At the same time, application skill strongly correlates with nearly all skills except concept understanding skill. This helps to conclude a fact that concerning programming language concept understanding is a memorization issue. On the other hand, concept application is an implementation issue. This research also presents the relationships that exist between these skills and Bloom’s taxonomy. Further, this research presents the methods for nurturing these skills. // We strongly believe that this pairwise correlation helps teachers and educators to design pedagogically effective programming lectures and platforms. // Paper ID 2896