Learning and comprehension of basic and natural language computer programming by novices
Jennifer L. Dyck · 1987
This study examined the effectiveness of teaching novices to program in Natural Language as a prerequisite for learning BASIC, and the learning and comprehension processes for Natural Language and BASIC computer programming languages. Three groups of computer-naive subjects participated in five self-paced learning sessions; in each session, subjects solved a series of programming problems with immediate feedback. Twenty-four subjects learned to solve BASIC programming problems (BASIC group) for all five sessions, 23 subjects learned to solve corresponding Natural Language programming problems for all five sessions (Natural Language group), and 23 subjects learned to solve Natural Language programming problems for three sessions and then transferred to BASIC for the remaining two sessions (Transfer group). At the end of the fifth session, all subjects completed a posttest which required the subjects to use their programming knowledge in a new way. Results indicated that the Natural Language trained subjects had complete transfer to BASIC, as indicated by no overall difference in comprehension time or accuracy for final BASIC sessions (i.e., sessions four and five) for the Transfer and BASIC groups. In addition, there was an interaction between group and session on accuracy, in which the Transfer group increased its accuracy at a faster rate than the BASIC group. A second interaction between group and type of score (semantic or syntactic) on the posttest, supports the observation that the Transfer group was better than the BASIC group at using the conceptual information needed to generate BASIC programs. These results suggest that some underlying programming concepts can be learned independently of the surface structure or syntax of the language. Other results indicated that the Natural Language and BASIC groups had similar comprehension times and accuracy scores across the five sessions, and there was no significant difference between the two groups in their conceptual performance on the posttest. These results indicate similar learning and comprehension processes for Natural Language and BASIC.