A-STUDY-OF-THE-DEVELOPMENT-OF-PROGRAMMIN

A-STUDY-OF-THE-DEVELOPMENT-OF-PROGRAMMING-ABILITY-AND-THINKING-SKILLS-IN-HIGH-SCHOOL-STUDENTS Pea, Kurland et al 1986

Could my GMS paper respond to Peas questions?

I) what is the impact of programming on particular mathematical and reasoning abilities?; 2) what cog- nitive skills or abilities best predict programming ability?; and 3) what do stu- dents actually understand about programming after two years of high school study?

We know far too little about what to expect students will learn in a reasonable period of tinie, how they learn, what conceptual diffi- culties they encounter, wliat forms of cognitive support they may require to guide them over these difficulties, or wlictlerindividual differences in learning styles are reflected in progranlniing and need to be guided differently in instruction. And beyond wliat rational analyses suggest, we cannot say with niuclassurance what knowledge and skills that students bring with tlien~ wllen they first rneet programming (e.g., natural language competencies; var- ious reasoning skills) are likely to facilitate the acquisition of programming

knowledge and skills.

Valuable discussion of transfer. Note: I found students transferring from an unexpected domain: text editing.

Can I construe any of my findings to be parallel to the bank street study?

My measure should be considered a near transfer task

Planning task: interface offered different accordances. Ask about their effect and other research down this line

Look to enrich, salter, soloway, Abbott for prints on math programming task

We can conclude, however, that such far transfer is unlikely to occur given the type of programining curriculum and amount of experience provided for tllese students, wllich if anything is mis- representatively rigorous and unrealistically more intensive than that found in most scloolstoday. Such experience is insufficient for mastery of the program- ming concepts and practices that engage and make more probable the far transfer of Iligli level thinking skills. Until a population with greater progratrlning expertise is studied longitudinally, the far transfer question remains open.

Who else has attempted to answer these questions in the last 40 years?

Upcoming work: 

Cs221 project should be analysis of gms data. Summit intern will help with planning and executing the unfold studio bit.