Familiar contexts and the difficulty of programming problems
Michelle L. Craig, J. J. B. Smith, Andrew K. Petersen · 2017
Intuition suggests that problems from a familiar context should be easier to solve than the same problems described using an unfamiliar domain. However, prior work on contextualized programming problems has found little evidence to support this hypothesis. In this paper, we extend this work by exploring the use of a particular familiar context: problem domains used earlier in an introductory programming course. We conduct a crossover design study in a large introductory programming course to compare problems with and without context related to previous coursework. Our results suggest that any advantage conveyed by a familiar context is dominated by other factors, such as the complexity of terminology used in the description, the length of the problem description, and the availability of examples. This suggests that educators should focus on simplicity of language and the development of examples, rather than seeking contexts that may aid in understanding problems.