Pre-entry Attributes Thought to Influence the Performance of Students in Computer Programming

Despite the fact that introductory programming courses (IPCs) are taught at universities for more than thirty years, students still find computer programming very difficult to learn. Programming pedagogy deals with the methods and principles of teaching and learning computer programming. The programming pedagogical approaches that have been proposed to increase the efficiency of teaching and learning computer programming mostly focus on the tools, paradigms, programming languages and environments used in IPCs. To increase significantly the students’ success rates in IPCs, these approaches should be complemented with pedagogical explanation (PE) methods. This research is focused on a PE method of teaching sequential search of a matrix row (SSMR). The research was designed as experimental study with pretest-posttest control group model, involving students of Computer Engineering department Izmir University. While the experimental group was subjected to a pedagogical explanation method, a traditional explanation method was applied in the control group. To collect the research data, an achievement pretest, posttest and a questionnaire were developed and applied. The research findings showed the effectiveness of teaching SSMR by using a PE method. This method positively influenced students’ level of topic comprehension, which consequently improved their achievements. In order for students to understand better the other matrix programming operations, similar PE methods should be developed and used in IPCs. On a more general level, the results of this research suggested that PE methods should be developed and used for other topics that students usually find difficult to understand in IPCs. Using these methods can be a very important factor in significantly increasing students’ success in IPCs.

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Specification for computer programming language CORAL 66

10.3403/00133933 ◽

1980 ◽

Keyword(s):

Programming Language ◽

Computer Programming

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Learners’ Sequence of Course Activities During Computer Programming MOOC

Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on e-Learning ◽

10.34190/eel.20.032 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

Computer Programming

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Musical Notation as the Externalization of Imagined, Complex Sound

The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, Volume 2 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190460242.013.41 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 190-218

Author(s):

Henrik Sinding-Larsen

Keyword(s):

Complex System ◽

Computer Programming ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Complex Sound ◽

Musical Notation ◽

History Of ◽

Visual Description ◽

The Way

Henrik Sinding-Larsen analyzes how new tools for the visual description of sound revolutionized the way music was conceived, performed, and disseminated. Early on, the ancient Greeks had described pitches and intervals in mathematically precise ways. However, their complex system had few consequences until it was combined with the practical minds of Roman Catholic choirmasters around 1000 ce. Now, melodies became depicted as note-heads on lines with precise pitch meanings and with note names based on octaves. This graphical and conceptual externalization of patterns in sound paved the way for a polyphonic complexity unimaginable in a purely oral/aural tradition. However, this higher complexity also entailed strictly standardized/homogenized scales and less room for improvisation in much of notation-based music. Through the concept of externalization, lessons from the history of musical notation are generalized to other tools of description, and Sinding-Larsen ends with a reflection on what future practices might become imaginable and unimaginable as a result of computer programming.

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