The Effects of Instructional Approach and Programming Tools on Novices’Learning Computer Programming Author: Ming-Puu Chen(Graduate Institute of Information and Computer Education National Taiwan Normal University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 52, No.1
Date：October 2007
Pages：1-21
DOI：10.6300/JNTNU.2007.52.01

Abstract：

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of type of instructional approach and type of programming tool on novices’ learning computer programming. Two types of instructional approaches, the procedural-learning instructional approach and the problem-solving instructional approach, and two types of programming tools, the procedural-programming tool and the object-oriented tool, were employed in this study. There were 153 senior high students who participated in the 5-week web-based programming learning activity. The valid sample size of this study was 132.
The performance analysis showed that (a) learners, regardless of instructional approach and programming tool, performed equally well on the comprehension test, and (b) as for problem-solving performance, the problem-solving and object-tool group outperformed the other groups. The analysis of attitudes revealed that (a) learners tended to think the received instruction was effective and they had a high degree of acceptance of it; they also thought the employed programming tool was easy to use; (b) the problem-solving approach group and the procedural-tool group showed a higher degree of acceptance of the received instruction than the other groups; and finally, (c) novices showed a greater preference for the procedural-tool than the object-tool with regard to ease-of-use.

Keywords：instructional strategy, programming language, programming tool

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