Hunting high and low: instruments to detect misconceptions related to algorithms and data structures

Authors:
Wolfgang Paul;Jan Vahrenhold
Affiliations:
Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany;Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
Venue:
Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Year:
2013

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Abstract

We present the result of assessing first-year students' misconceptions related to algorithms and data structures. Our study confirms findings from previous small-scale studies but additionally broadens the scope of the topics and methods investigated. The evaluation of our experiments sheds light on dependencies between active and passive knowledge as well as on the instruments used; in particular, we conclude that there is no "one size fits all" instrument but that instruments should be selected depending on the topic at hand.