Abstract
Learning computer programming is difficult and complex for most of novices. The block-based visualized programming environments can reduce the learning dilemma in programming syntax and invoke the learners’ motivation. This study integrated App Inventor 2 into one course for the freshmen of a public university in Taipei city. The purpose of this study was to facilitate the freshmen to construct concrete advanced organization of programming for learning text-based computer languages in the future, to investigate their perception toward visualized programming environment and the impact on their problem-solving skills when programming. The research results revealed that the freshmen showed positive perception toward App Inventor 2 including helping to be familiar with basic programming concepts, learning transfer from block-based programming to text-based programming, usefulness of project development and programming flows. After guiding the freshmen to learn some algorithms and providing digital simulation-based learning materials in the problem-solving stage, improving ration of their programming skills were very high.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ISTE: ISTE Standards: Students (2016). https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students
Lai, A.-F.: The tendency and promise of computer programming education. In: Koa, L. (ed.) Educational Research Tendency in Taiwan, pp. 435–491. WuNan, Taipei City (2012)
Gomes, A., Mendes, A.J.: An environment to improve programming education. In: Rachev, B., Smrikarov, A., Dimov, D. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, Bulgaria, 14–15 June 2007. ACM, New York (2007)
Gomes, A., Mendes, A.J.: A study on student’s characteristics and programming learning. Accepted for presentation in ED-MEDIA 2008, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, Wien, June (2008)
Boulay, B.: Programming environments for novices. In: Frasson, C., Gauthier, G., McCalla, G.I. (eds.) ITS 1992. LNCS, vol. 608, pp. 37–37. Springer, Heidelberg (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-55606-0_4
Hostetler, T.R.: Predicting student success in an introductory programming course. SIGCSE Bull. 15(3), 40–43 (1983)
Kelleher, C., Pausch, R.: Lowering the barriers to programming: a taxonomy of programming environments and languages for novice programmers. ACM Comput. Surv. 37(2), 83–137 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1145/1089733.1089734
Lahtinen, E., Ala-Mutka, K.A., Jarvinen, H.M.: A study of the difficulties of novice programmers. In: Proceedings of 10th Annual SIGSCE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Monte da Caparica, Portugal, pp. 14–18. ACM (2005). https://doi.org/10.1145/1067445.1067453
Mannila, L., Peltomäki, M., Salakoski, T.: What about a simple language? Analyzing the difficulties in learning to program. Comput. Sci. Educ. 16(3), 211–227 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1080/08993400600912384
Mazlack, L.J.: Identifying potential to acquire programming skill. Commun. ACM 23(1), 14–17 (1980)
Robins, A., Rountree, J., Rountree, N.: Learning and teaching programming: a review and discussion. Comput. Sci. Educ. 13(2), 137–172 (2003)
Rogalski, J., Samurçay, R.: Acquisition of programming knowledge and skills. In: Psychology of Programming, pp. 157–174 (1990)
Simon, S.: Assignment and sequence: why some students can’t recognise a simple swap. In: Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research - Koli Calling, pp. 10–15 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1145/2094131.2094134
Wing, J.M.: Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49(3), 33–35 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank MOST for its partially supported under No 111-2410-H-845-002.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lai, AF., Yang, CY. (2022). The Effectiveness of Block-Based Programming Learning on the Problem-Solving Skills of the Freshmen. In: Hsieh, SY., Hung, LJ., Klasing, R., Lee, CW., Peng, SL. (eds) New Trends in Computer Technologies and Applications. ICS 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1723. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9582-8_45
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9582-8_45
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-19-9581-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-19-9582-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)