Programming fundamentals and human factors: an empirical study of three variables

Abstract

In the present study we identify and experimentally investigate variations in the values of three important variables that are present in learning environments for programming fundamentals: the type of the source of problems (concrete vs. abstract); the type of the programming language grammar (context-free vs. natural language like); and the distance between the concepts in the source of problems and the programming language primitives (close vs. distant). We understand that the results of our research can be used to design better courses and learning material, to improve students' performance in the learning of introductory programming.