A multi-institutional, multinational study of programming concepts using card sort data

Kate Sanders, Sally Fincher, Dennis Bouvier, Gary Lewandowski, Briana Morrison, Laurie Murphy, Marian Petre, Brad Richards, Josh Tenenberg, Lynda Thomas, Richard Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Sue Fitzgerald, Alicia Gutschow, Susan Haller, Raymond Lister, Renée McCauley, John McTaggart, Christine Prasad, Terry ScottDermot Shinners-Kennedy, Suzanne Westbrook, Carol Zander

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of the use of a repeated single-criterion card sort with an unusually large, diverse participant group. The study, whose goal was to elicit novice programmers' knowledge of programming concepts, involved over 20 researchers from four continents and 276 participants drawn from 20 different institutions. In this paper we present the design of the study and the unexpected result that there were few discernible systematic differences in the population. The study was one of the activities of the National Science Foundation funded Bootstrapping Research in Computer Science Education project (2003).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)121-128
Number of pages8
JournalExpert Systems
Volume22
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2005

Keywords

  • Card sort
  • Computer science education research
  • Elicitation
  • Programming concepts

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