On 2011-03-21 13:41, Enda Dunican wrote:
I have been reading this discussion with interest. Marian's message provoked
further thought. In recent months (as part of my involvement in sports
coaching), I have read a number of books that put forward the idea that rather
than being the cause of s
-Original Message-
From: Alan Blackwell [mailto:alan.blackw...@cl.cam.ac.uk]
Sent: 21 March 2011 11:59
To: Stefano Federici
Cc: Richard O'Keefe; Thomas Green; PPIG Listserve; alan.blackw...@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: URGENT: Testing Inclination to Programming
I may have missed it, but I
- Original Message
> From: Alan Blackwell
> To: Stefano Federici
> Cc: Richard O'Keefe ; Thomas Green
> ;
>PPIG Listserve ; alan.blackw...@cl.cam.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, 21 March, 2011 7:59:15
> Subject: Re: URGENT: Testing Inclination to Programming
>
> I
I may have missed it, but I don't think I saw a reference to the
series of studies by Beckwith and Burnett on self-efficacy as a
significant factor leading to gender differences in early
programming experiences.
If your experimental population includes a mix of males and
females, you may find t
That's a great question--really does sound fascinating, Stefano! I'm eager to
hear about your results!
My best recommendation is to take a few subjects and watch them use MiniC then
traditional C. A good think-aloud protocol may give you a lot of insight into
what's going on, e.g., when faced
Dear All,
I went through one of the suggested papers about self-efficacy
(Self-efficacy and mental models in learning to program, Ramalingam et
al, 2004). Unfortunately I'm at present totally unable to understand
the final results (path analysis of the model):
post Self-Efficacy (R2 = .44)
But consider that the run of participations you're about to make
could just be a pilot.
I understand. To clarify my test, I'm not going to compare
Scratch/BYOB with my tool. I'm going to compare miniC (a minimal C
implementation built on BYOB) vs regular C environments. I want to
test if
I'm listening, but have little to add. I just point back to Marian's list --
those are the issues, Stefano. Gather what data you can and hope that your two
groups are roughly equivalent on the variables you're hoping to control for.
A bigger issue (again, reflecting back to Marian's list) is t
Thanks a lot again
Short version: Look at the Rountree et al work for a summary of
previous studies. Have a look at one of the BRACE papers.
I will certainly do.
Read a good book on experiment design, and take into account
Thomas's advice about pilot studies. It's worth putting the effo
Thanks again. But, as I said before, 298 pages are really too much for
me right now. If you could simply summarize his main ideas so that I
can design a sound test to group my students, I would really
appreciate it.
Thanks in advance
Stefano
Citando Marian Petre :
You might also have a l
Thanks! So many references but... if I can certainly start going
through them, being you the experts I would really appreciate a "start
from this" indication. If not, being my present need very urgent, I
risk to take into account only a small fraction of these works, maybe
not the most rele
You might also have a look at David Greathead's doctoral dissertation
(2009) "An Investigation into the Influence of Student Personality Type
and Other Factors on a Code Comprehension and Design Task in Java."
http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/david.greathead/formal/GreatheadThesisDoubleSpaced.pdf
Dear all,
Please, please let's not re-invent the wheel -- or perhaps reiterate
our own ignorance. We actually know very little about true
indicators of programming aptitude. There are some correlations
with spatial reasoning, and some with accurate articulati
I regard using spreadsheets as programming.
Sure, I seen it the same way. Programming is creating general "rules"
that will apply to different cases/situations. Is organized and
logical thinking.
the worst threat to generalisability is probably the risk of
'experimenter effect', where t
On 19 Mar 2011, at 09:55, Stefano Federici wrote:
what I claim is the easiest programming environment ever designed so
far).
Er, yes. You might need to restrict what you mean by
'programming' . I regard using spreadsheets as programming. But
Scratch is very good at its job, to be su
1) If you're trying to set up balanced groups for a study, then you
only need to know about factors that will give a sizeable noise
level if they are not balanced across groups. That's what I thought
you wanted to do, am I right?
Yes, this is my main goal.
how good is the interface? If the
Re "self-efficacy", read
Unskilled and Unaware of it:
How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence
Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Kruger and Dunning
Psychology, 2009, 1, 30-46
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in ma
On 18 Mar 2011, at 17:28, Richard Bornat wrote:
> Those who use the wrong model or no model can't program, whether or not they
> say they can
I meant, of course, can't program _yet_.
Richard Bornat
--
The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt
charity in E
On 18 Mar 2011, at 14:40, Stefano Federici wrote:
> Now I have an urgent need to know which (if any) are the specific tests that
> would allow me to group students that have an inclination to programming from
> students that have so such an inclination, and students that already know how
> to
How deeply do you want to go into this?
1) If you're trying to set up balanced groups for a study, then you
only need to know about factors that will give a sizeable noise level
if they are not balanced across groups. That's what I thought you
wanted to do, am I right?
2) If you want to k
YES:
Mathematical and logical skills, yes. But I really don't think you
need to do more than ask them what educational qualifications they
have.
Being them Italian students at the university level, having an
educational qualification is not often a good indicator of what skills
they hav
Are there other domains that may be relevent for an individual so to
understand in advance if they have an inclination to computer
programming?
Possibly relevant: "Mental models, Consistency and Programming Aptitude"
(Bornat, Dehnadi and Simon 2008). It's an investigation into whether
studen
Hi there!!!
This is great material about Self-efficacy theory, also self-efficacy to
programming
1. Bandura, A., ?Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change?,
Psychological Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 1977, pp. 191-215.
2. Karsten R. & Roth R.M. /Computer self/-/efficacy: a pr
Dear Stefano
Since nobody else has replied yet, and you say it's urgent:
YES:
Mathematical and logical skills, yes. But I really don't think you
need to do more than ask them what educational qualifications they have.
Previous programming experience - the best criterion might be number
of
Dear collegues,
I want to thank you the list for the precious suggestions about the
evaluation of programming environments.
Now I have an urgent need to know which (if any) are the specific
tests that would allow me to group students that have an inclination
to programming from students th
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