Neil Brown
Brett Becker
Michael Kölling
ABSTRACT
Block-based programming has become popular for children and young school students, but at university level almost all programming is still text-based. A third intermediate option is the use of frame-based editors that combine elements of both block- and text-based systems. However, there have been few evaluations of the efficacy of frame-based editing, so its suitability for school use is uncertain. This paper describes an experiment comparing the use of frame-based and text-based editing in a UK school setting. A total of 85 teenage students from five different schools each completed three sessions of object-oriented programming tasks and a programming quiz, with each school assigned to use either a text-based editor or frame-based editor. We found no difference in understanding of object-oriented concepts between the two editors, and no difference in task completion times. This provides some evidence to suggest that frame-based editing is a viable option for use in a school setting, in place of text-based editing.
- Hussein Alrubaye, Stephanie Ludi, and Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer. 2019. Comparison of Block-Based and Hybrid-Based Environments in Transferring Programming Skills to Text-Based Environments. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) (CASCON ’19). IBM Corp., USA, 100–109.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Neil C. C. Brown, Michael Kölling, Davin McCall, and Ian Utting. 2014. Blackbox: A Large Scale Repository of Novice Programmers’ Activity. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) (SIGCSE ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 223–228. https://doi.org/10.1145/2538862.2538924Google ScholarDigital Library
- Adrienne Decker and Monica M. McGill. 2019. A Topical Review of Evaluation Instruments for Computing Education. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Minneapolis, MN, USA) (SIGCSE ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 558–564. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287393Google ScholarDigital Library
- Paul Denny, Brett A. Becker, Michelle Craig, Greg Wilson, and Piotr Banaszkiewicz. 2019. Research This! Questions That Computing Educators Most Want Computing Education Researchers to Answer. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (Toronto ON, Canada) (ICER ’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 259–267. https://doi.org/10.1145/3291279.3339402Google ScholarDigital Library
- Diana Franklin, Gabriela Skifstad, Reiny Rolock, Isha Mehrotra, Valerie Ding, Alexandria Hansen, David Weintrop, and Danielle Harlow. 2017. Using Upper-Elementary Student Performance to Understand Conceptual Sequencing in a Blocks-Based Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Seattle, Washington, USA) (SIGCSE ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 231–236. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017760Google ScholarDigital Library
- Shuchi Grover and Satabdi Basu. 2017. Measuring Student Learning in Introductory Block-Based Programming: Examining Misconceptions of Loops, Variables, and Boolean Logic. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Seattle, Washington, USA) (SIGCSE ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 267–272. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017723Google ScholarDigital Library
- Michael Kölling, Neil C. C. Brown, and Amjad Altadmri. 2015. Frame-Based Editing: Easing the Transition from Blocks to Text-Based Programming. In Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (London, United Kingdom) (WiPSCE ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 29–38. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818314.2818331Google ScholarDigital Library
- Michael Kölling, Neil C. C. Brown, and Amjad Altadmri. 2017. Frame-Based Editing. Visual Languages and Sentient Systems 3 (7 2017), 40–67.Google Scholar
- Michael Kölling, Neil C. C. Brown, Hamza Hamza, and Davin McCall. 2019. Stride in BlueJ – Computing for All in an Educational IDE. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Minneapolis, MN, USA) (SIGCSE ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 63–69. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287462Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alexandra Kuznetsova, Per B. Brockhoff, and Rune H. B. Christensen. 2017. lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models. Journal of Statistical Software, Articles 82, 13 (2017), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v082.i13Google ScholarCross Ref
- John Maloney, Mitchel Resnick, Natalie Rusk, Brian Silverman, and Evelyn Eastmond. 2010. The Scratch Programming Language and Environment. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. 10, 4, Article 16 (Nov. 2010), 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/1868358.1868363Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lauren R. Milne and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. Blocks4All: Overcoming Accessibility Barriers to Blocks Programming for Children with Visual Impairments. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal QC, Canada) (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173643Google ScholarDigital Library
- Thomas W. Price and Tiffany Barnes. 2015. Comparing Textual and Block Interfaces in a Novice Programming Environment. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research (Omaha, Nebraska, USA) (ICER ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 91–99. https://doi.org/10.1145/2787622.2787712Google ScholarDigital Library
- Thomas W. Price, Neil C. C. Brown, Dragan Lipovac, Tiffany Barnes, and Michael Kölling. 2016. Evaluation of a Frame-based Programming Editor. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research(ICER ’16). ACM, 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1145/2960310.2960319Google ScholarDigital Library
- Latifa Ben Arfa Rabai, Barry Cohen, and Ali Mili. 2015. Programming Language Use in US Academia and Industry.Informatics in Education 14, 2 (2015), 143–160.Google Scholar
- Simon, Raina Mason, Tom Crick, James H. Davenport, and Ellen Murphy. 2018. Language Choice in Introductory Programming Courses at Australasian and UK Universities. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) (SIGCSE ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 852–857. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159547Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Weintrop and Nathan Holbert. 2017. From Blocks to Text and Back: Programming Patterns in a Dual-Modality Environment. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education(Seattle, Washington, USA) (SIGCSE ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 633–638. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017707Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Weintrop, Heather Killen, Talal Munzar, and Baker Franke. 2019. Block-Based Comprehension: Exploring and Explaining Student Outcomes from a Read-Only Block-Based Exam. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Minneapolis, MN, USA) (SIGCSE ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1218–1224. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287348Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Weintrop and Uri Wilensky. 2017. Comparing Block-Based and Text-Based Programming in High School Computer Science Classrooms. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. 18, 1, Article 3 (Oct. 2017), 25 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3089799Google ScholarDigital Library
Recommendations
Frame-Based Editing: Easing the Transition from Blocks to Text-Based Programming
WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing EducationBlock-based programming systems, such as Scratch or Alice, are the most popular environments for introducing young children to programming. However, mastery of text-based programming continues to be the educational goal for students who continue to ...
Comparing Block-Based and Text-Based Programming in High School Computer Science Classrooms
The number of students taking high school computer science classes is growing. Increasingly, these students are learning with graphical, block-based programming environments either in place of or prior to traditional text-based programming languages. ...
Evaluation of a Frame-based Programming Editor
ICER '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on International Computing Education ResearchFrame-based editing is a novel way to edit programs, which claims to combine the benefits of textual and block-based programming. It combines structured `frames' of preformatted code, designed to reduce the burden of syntax, with `slots' that allow for ...
Comments