Analyzing the high frequency bugs in novice programs
Papers presented at the first workshop on empirical studies of programmers on Empirical studies of programmers
The complete Hypercard handbook
The complete Hypercard handbook
Moving Practice: From Classrooms to MOO Rooms
Computer Supported Cooperative Work - Special issue on interaction and collaboration in MUDs
Community Support for Constructionist Learning
Computer Supported Cooperative Work - Special issue on interaction and collaboration in MUDs
Moose crossing: construction, community, and learning in a networked virtual world for kids
Moose crossing: construction, community, and learning in a networked virtual world for kids
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Coached program planning: dialogue-based support for novice program design
SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Design of a 3D interactive math learning environment
DIS '02 Proceedings of the 4th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques
WIPE: a programming environment for novices
ITiCSE '05 Proceedings of the 10th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
WIPE " Pilot Testing and Comparative Evaluation
ICALT '05 Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
Evaluation of two textual programming notations for children
AUIC '05 Proceedings of the Sixth Australasian conference on User interface - Volume 40
A review of research methods in children's technology design
Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Interaction design and children
Translating keyword commands into executable code
UIST '06 Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
Interaction Design and Children
Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction
Gender and programming achievement in a CSCL environment
CSCL '02 Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a CSCL Community
No Code Required: Giving Users Tools to Transform the Web
No Code Required: Giving Users Tools to Transform the Web
Towards a taxonomy of errors in HTML and CSS
Proceedings of the ninth annual international ACM conference on International computing education research
Hi-index | 0.01 |
Should programming languages use natural-language-like syntax?Under what circumstances? What sorts of errors do noviceprogrammers make? Does using a natural- language-like programminglanguage lead to user errors? In this study, we read the entireonline interactions of sixteen children who issued a total of35,047 commands on MOOSE Crossing, an educational MUD for children,We counted and categorized the errors made. A total d 2,970 errorswere observed. We define natural-language errors as those errors inwhich the user failed to distinguish between English and code,issuing an incorrect command that was more English-like than thecorrect one. A total of 314 natural-language errors were observed.In most of those errors, the child was able to correct the problemeither easily (41.1% of the time) or with some effort (20.7%).Natural-language errors were divided into five categories. In orderfrom most to least frequent, they are: syntax errors, guessing acommand name by supplying an arbitrary English word, literalinterpretation of metaphor, assuming the system is keeping morestate information than is actually the case, and errors of operatorprecedence and combination. We believe that these error rates arewithin acceptable limits, and conclude that leveraging usersnatural-language knowledge is for many applications an effectivestrategy for designing end-user-programming languages.