Abstract
We report on a study of novice programmers' object oriented class designs. These designs were analysed to discover what faults they displayed. The two most common faults related to non-referenced classes (inability to integrate them into the solution), and problems with attributes and class cohesion. The paper ends with some implication for teaching that may be indicated by the empirical results.
- Du Boulay, B., Some Difficulties in Learning to Program, in Studying the Novice Programmer, Soloway, E. and Spohrer, J. C. (eds), Lawrence Eribaum, 1988, 283--299.Google Scholar
- Eckerdal, A., McCartney, R, Mostrom, J.E., Ratcliffe, M., and Zander, C., Can graduating students design software systems? in Proceedings SIGCSE '06, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Garner, S., Haden, P. & Robins, A., My Program is correct but it doesn't run: A preliminary investigation of novice programmers' problems, in Proceedings of Australasian Computing Education Conference, 2005, 173--180. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Holland, S., Griffiths, R. & Woodman, M., Avoiding Object Misconceptions, in Proceedings SIGCSE '97, 1997, 131--134. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hristova, M., Misra, A., Rutter, M., and Mercuri, R., Identifying and Correcting Java Programming Errors for Introductory Computer Science Students, in Proceedings SIGCSE '03, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lister, R., Adams, E., Fitzgerald, S., Fone, W., Hamer, J., Lindholm, M., McCartney, R., Moström, J. E., Sanders, K., Seppälä, O., Simon, B. and Thomas, L., A Multi-National Study of Reading and Tracing Skills in Novice Programmers, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 36, 4 (Dec. 2004), 119--150. Google ScholarDigital Library
- McCracken, M., Almstrum, V., Diaz, D., Guzdial, M., Hagen, D., Kolikant, Y., Laxer, C., Thomas, L. A., Utting, I., and Wilusz, T., A Multi National Study of Assessment of Programming Skills of First year CS students, SIGCSE Bulletin, 33, 4 (Dec. 2001), 125--140. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Miller, G. A., WordNet a lexical database for the English language, http://wordnet.princeton.edu/, 2005.Google Scholar
- Muller, O., Pattern Oriented Instruction and Enhancement of Analogical Reasoning, Proceedings ICER '05, 2005. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Or-Bach, R. and Lavy, I., Cognitive Activities of Abstraction in Object Orientation: An Empirical Study, SIGCSE Bulletin 36, 2 (2004), 82--86. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robins, A., Rountree, A.J., and Rountree, N., Learning and teaching programming: A review and discussion, Computer Science Education, 13, 2 (2003), 137 -- 172.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Soloway, E., Spohrer, J.C., and Littman, D., E unum pluribus: Generating Alternative Designs, in Mayer, R.E. (ed), Teaching and Learning Computer Programming, Lawrence Eribaum, 1988.Google Scholar
- Spohrer, J. C. & Soloway, E., Novice mistakes: Are the folk wisdoms correct? in Studying the Novice Programmer, Soloway, E. and Spohrer, J. C. (eds), Lawrence Eribaum, 1988, 401--416.Google Scholar
- Thomasson, B., Identifying Faults and Misconceptions of Novice Programmers Learning Object Oriented Design, PhD Thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 2005.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Identifying novice difficulties in object oriented design
Recommendations
Identifying novice difficulties in object oriented design
ITICSE '06: Proceedings of the 11th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science educationWe report on a study of novice programmers' object oriented class designs. These designs were analysed to discover what faults they displayed. The two most common faults related to non-referenced classes (inability to integrate them into the solution), ...
A combined functional and object-oriented approach to software design
ICECCS '95: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer SystemsLarge and complex software systems contain a variety of entities (objects) and a complex control system (transformation function). The pure object-oriented design and structured design approaches concentrate on either objects or the transformation ...
Comments