STUDY OF NOVICE PROGRAMMERS: PLANS, OBJECT DESIGN, WEB PLAN OBJECT LANGUAGE (WPOL)

Programming has evolved through a number of different paradigms, including the Object Oriented Paradigm, which aims to make programming more efficient and better understood. Despite various enhancements in programming languages, environments, and pedagocial approaches, novices are still faced with many challenges when learning to program. Computer science departments in universities world wide are in a crisis of high drop out and failure rates, as well as low enrollment in computr science courses. It has been shown that experienced programmers utilize plan representations to encode programming concepts and tasks. Studies of novice programmers reveal that most major errors are a result of plan and object management. Students exhibit difficulties conceptualizing and implementing objects. Objects, while representing the real world, can be intangible, vague, and lack context for novice programmers. A Plan-Object learning paradigm that reinforces concepts of object design through plan representation can aid students' ability to design and implement objects, as well as their ability to utilize objects into problem solving. Our approach also contributes to the Objects-First vs. Objects-Next debate by introducing objects using plans. To address the problems faced by novice programmers, an interactive learning environment, Web Plan Object Language (WPOL), is designed. WPOL is plan oriented and teaches novices programming by plan observation, integration, and creation. In WPOL, an object or a function can be simply understood by their defined plans (context). This study empirically examines two groups of novice programmers; one learning programming with objects by using traditional methods and another with exposure to the Plan-Oriented learning paradigm and WPOL. The results demonstrate the positive impact of WPOL on novice's comprehension of object design and incorporation of objects into their programs.