Students' Misconceptions of Optimization Algorithms
J. Ángel Velázquez‐Iturbide · 2019
There are ongoing efforts to identify students' misconceptions of computing topics, including algorithms. The paper addresses students' misconceptions of optimization problems and their corresponding algorithms. Optimization problems are an important class of problems in computer science, thus their associated misconceptions may form a relevant subset of misconceptions on algorithms. The findings presented are based on a number of evaluations conducted in past years. Assignment reports elaborated by students were used as primary materials for qualitative analysis. We present 8 misunderstandings, structured into 5 general themes. As it could be expected, some themes refer to optimization algorithms or to specific algorithm design techniques, but we also identified misconceptions of two more general themes, namely basic concepts of optimization, and basic concepts of problems and algorithms. We discuss implications of the findings for algorithm instruction and curricula.