Learning recursion as a concept and as a programming technique
SIGCSE '88 Proceedings of the nineteenth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Do algorithm animations assist learning?: an empirical study and analysis
INTERCHI '93 Proceedings of the INTERCHI '93 conference on Human factors in computing systems
The schematics of computation
EROSI—visualising recursion and discovering new errors
Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Recursively speaking: analyzing students' discourse of recursive phenomena
Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Mental models of recursion revisited
Proceedings of the 11th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Students' mental models of recursion at wits
Proceedings of the 12th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Animating recursion as an aid to instruction
Computers & Education
Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
Improving student learning outcomes with pair programming
Proceedings of the ninth annual international conference on International computing education research
Using cargo-bot to provide contextualized learning of recursion
Proceedings of the ninth annual international ACM conference on International computing education research
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Mental models of recursion provide some idea into a student's understanding of recursion. However there has been concern regarding whether viable trace mental models of recursion show students' true understanding of recursion. We have conducted an investigation to further examine the understanding of recursion of students with viable trace mental models. The investigation looked at students' understanding of the termination of a recursive function, their descriptive mental models and their ability to generate a recursive function. This research provides evidence to show that trace methods are essentially mechanical processes that can allow students with little understanding of recursion to correctly evaluate a recursive function but that students do not fully understand recursion and in particular have difficulties with the passive flow. Based on the results of the study, this paper discusses possible changes that can be made to our teaching in order to more eectively teach recursion to first year students.