Effects of language features, templates, and procedural skills on problem-solving in programming

This research intended to find out the componential knowledge and skills that relate to programming and investigate how these components affect it. Four instruments were developed to measure students’ language proficiency, template possession, procedural skills and problem solving ability in programming. 260 secondary students in Hong Kong were selected to take the tests. Results indicated that knowledge, including language features and templates, and procedural skills including planning, testing and reformulating, were related to programming. The path model revealed that proficiency in a programming language was a necessary but not a sufficient condition in programming. Proficiency in the features of a language underpinned programming performance through the mediating effects of template abstraction and the general sophistication with the procedural skills. Planning skill was found to be most prominent in programming design. Also, template possession would facilitate planning skill. Therefore abstracting knowledge of template may bridge the gap between syntax learning and problem solving in programming. Copyright © 2009 香港中文大學 CUHK. All rights reserved.