Guest Editor's Introduction: An Applied Psychology of the User
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
The Psychology of How Novices Learn Computer Programming
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Psychology of calculator languages: a framework for describing differences in users' knowledge
Communications of the ACM
A psychology of learning BASIC
Communications of the ACM
Learning to program and learning to think: what's the connection?
Communications of the ACM
Novice mistakes: are the folk wisdoms correct?
Communications of the ACM
Alternatives to construct-based programming misconceptions
CHI '86 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
An introductory algorithm teacher
SIGCSE '87 Proceedings of the eighteenth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
BASIC versus natural language: is there one underlying comprehension process?
CHI '85 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
An Intelligent Human-Computer Interface for Provisionof On-Line Help
Artificial Intelligence Review
ERP training strategies: conceptual training and the formation of accurate mental models
SIGMIS CPR '03 Proceedings of the 2003 SIGMIS conference on Computer personnel research: Freedom in Philadelphia--leveraging differences and diversity in the IT workforce
Reflections by teachers learning to program
SAICSIT '03 Proceedings of the 2003 annual research conference of the South African institute of computer scientists and information technologists on Enablement through technology
"But it looks right!": the bugs students don't see
Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Methods and tools for exploring novice compilation behaviour
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Computing education research
Why complicate things?: introducing programming in high school using Python
ACE '06 Proceedings of the 8th Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 52
Investigating the viability of mental models held by novice programmers
Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Undergraduate students' mental models of the Web as an information retrieval system
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Another look at the behaviors of novice programmers
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
ITiCSE '09 Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
The same but different students' understandings of primitive and object variables
Koli '08 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computing Education Research
Consultation of Misconceptions Representations by Students in Education-Related Courses
Proceedings of the 2009 conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education: Building Learning Systems that Care: From Knowledge Representation to Affective Modelling
Identifying student misconceptions of programming
Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research
Notional machines and introductory programming education
ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE)
Developing a pre- and post-course concept inventory to gauge operating systems learning
Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
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In the process of learning a computer language, beginning programmers may develop mental models for the language. A mental model refers to the user's conception of the “invisible” information processing that occurs inside the computer between input and output. In this study, 30 undergraduate students learned BASIC through a self-paced, mastery manual and simultaneously had hands-on access to an Apple II computer. After instruction, the students were tested on their mental models for the execution of each of nine BASIC statements. The results show that beginning programmers—although able to perform adequately on mastery tests in program generation—possessed a wide range of misconceptions concerning the statements they had learned. This paper catalogs beginning programmers' conceptions of “what goes on inside the computer” for each of nine BASIC statements.