The effect of sketching and tracing on instructors' understanding of student misconceptions

Kathryn Cunningham

doi:10.1145/3105726.3105746

Abstract

The operation of the notional machine presents a hidden but crucial process in students' understanding of introductory programming. When students trace though code, simulating the operation of the notional machine, this hidden operation becomes evident. When students sketch this trace by physically drawing it, the operation is also visible to peers, tutors, and teachers as well as to the students themselves. Increased accuracy on code reading problems has already been found for students who sketch and trace. I want to explore whether sketching and tracing helps others be.er understand what a student knows about the notional machine.

Original language	English (US)
Pages	301-302
Number of pages	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3105726.3105746
State	Published - Aug 14 2017
Externally published	Yes
Event	13th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, ICER 2017 - Tacoma, United States Duration: Aug 18 2017 → Aug 20 2017

Other

Other	13th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, ICER 2017
Country/Territory	United States
City	Tacoma
Period	8/18/17 → 8/20/17

Keywords

CS1
Notional machine
Novice programmers
Sketching
Tracing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computational Theory and Mathematics
Computer Science Applications
Software
Education

Online availability

10.1145/3105726.3105746

Library availability

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Cite this

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