MENU
  • ASEE Logo
  • Give
    Give
    ASEE Donations...
    Classified Volunteer
    Login
  • Join Login Volunteer Classified Give
    Give
    ASEE Donations...



About
  • Overview
    • Mission, Vision, Goals
    • Public Policy Statements
    • Constitution
    • Bylaws
    • Organizational Structure
    • Investment Policy
    • Financial Policy
  • Our History
  • Staff Contacts
  • Leadership
    • Board Of Directors
    • Academy Of Fellows
    • Past Board Members
    • Advisory Committees
    • Representatives to External Organizations
    • Executive Director's Message
    • Meeting Minutes
  • Volunteer
  • Careers at ASEE
  • Privacy Statement
I Am A...
  • Member
      Login Required
    • Your Member Page
    • Membership Directory
    • Financials
    • Volunteer for Task Force
      • COVID Recovery
      • Engineering Culture
    • No Login Required
    • Awards
    • Divisions, Fellows, and Campus Reps
    • Sections and Zones
    • Resources
  • Prospective Individual/Organizational Member
    • About ASEE
    • Individual Membership
    • Institutional Membership
    • Major Activities
  • Donor
  • Prospective Partner or Sponsor
  • Advertiser
  • Fellowship Seeker
    • About Fellowships
    • High School
    • Undergraduate
    • Graduate
    • Post-Doctoral
    • Other Programs
Events
  • Conferences and Meetings
    • 2022 Annual Conference & Exposition
    • 2021 Virtual Annual Conference & Exposition
    • 2020 Virtual Annual Conference & Exposition
    • Section & Zone Meetings
  • Council Events
    • Conference for Industry and
      Education Collaboration (CIEC)
    • CMC Workforce Summit
    • Engineering Deans Institute (EDI)
    • Research Leadership Institute (RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • EDC Public Policy Colloquium (PPC)
  • Featured Events
    • Frontiers in Education
    • NETI
    • CoNECD
    • First Year Engineering Experience
    • Workforce Summit
  • Future Conference Dates
Publications
  • News
    • Newsletters
    • eGFI
    • Division Publications
  • Journals and Conference Papers
    • Overview
    • Journal of Engineering Education
    • Advances in Engineering Education
    • Conference Proceedings
    • Section Proceedings
    • Zone Proceedings
    • PEER
    • Plagiarism
  • Monographs and Reports
  • Prism Magazine
  • Data
    • Profiles of E&ET Colleges
    • Case Study Series: Engineering-Enhanced Liberal Education
Impact
  • Public Policy Statements
  • Data Analysis
  • Annual Reports
  • Diversity
Education & Careers
  • Academic Job Opportunities
  • Course Catalog
  • Engineering Education Research and Innovation
    • Engineering Education Community Resource
  • PreK-12
    • eGFI Teachers
    • eGFI Students
  • Engineering Teacher PD Endorsement
Calendar
2020 Annual Conference
The ASEE 2020 Virtual Annual Conference content is available.
See More....
  • International Forum
    • Past Forums
  • 2020 Research Leadership Institute(RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Overview
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ERC Past Conferences
  • 2018 Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ETLI Sponsorship Options
  • 2017 Global Colloquium
  • Pre K-12 Workshop
    • Call for Proposals
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Sponsors
    • Program Schedule
    • Past Conferences
  • STEP Grantees Meeting
  • Annual Conference
    • Past Conferences
  • International Forum
    • Past Forums
  • 2020 Research Leadership Institute(RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Overview
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ERC Past Conferences
  • 2018 Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ETLI Sponsorship Options
  • 2017 Global Colloquium
  • Pre K-12 Workshop
    • Call for Proposals
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Sponsors
    • Program Schedule
    • Past Conferences
  • STEP Grantees Meeting
  • Annual Conference
    • Past Conferences

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An Analysis of Common Errors Leading to Excessive Student Struggle on Homework Problems in an Introductory Programming Course

Presented at COED: Issues Impacting Students Learning How to Program

Students make many errors in an introductory programming course (aka CS 1). While previous research reports common errors, some errors are normal, being corrected by students in a reasonable amount of time, and being part of the learning process. However, some errors may lead to frustration due to excessive struggle, which may lead to student attrition. We defined a struggle metric using a combination of excessive time spent and excessive attempts, relative to other students in a course and reasonable thresholds. We analyzed struggle on 78 short, auto-graded coding homework problems for an 80-student Spring 2017 introductory C++ programming course at a research university. We found the struggle rate to be 10-15%. Our main focus was to determine the errors that led to such struggle, and thus we manually examined the student submissions for the 10 homework problems having the highest struggle rates. We described the errors and potential underlying student misconceptions that seemed to lead to that struggle. We found that most common errors belong to the following: nested loops, else-if vs. multiple if, random range, input/output, for loop and vector, for loop and if, vector index, negated loop expression, and boolean expressions. Having a deeper understanding of these common errors may aid teachers and authors to help students avoid or correct such errors, thus reducing struggle, which may reduce frustration and potential attrition.

Authors
  1. Nabeel Alzahrani University of California, Riverside [biography]

    Nabeel Alzahrani is a computer science PhD student at the University of California, Riverside. Nabeel's research interests include causes of student struggle, and debugging methodologies, in introductory computer programming courses.

  2. Prof. Frank Vahid University of California, Riverside [biography]

    Frank Vahid is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Univ. of California, Riverside. His research interests include embedded systems design, and engineering education. He is a co-founder of zyBooks.com.

  3. Dr. Alex Daniel Edgcomb zyBooks [biography]

    Alex Edgcomb finished his PhD in computer science at UC Riverside in 2014. Alex works in research and development at zyBooks.com, a startup that develops interactive, web-native textbooks in STEM. Alex has also continued working as a research specialist at UC Riverside, studying the efficacy of web-native content for STEM education.

  4. Prof. Roman Lysecky University of Arizona [biography]

    Roman Lysecky is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 2005. His research interests include embedded systems, runtime optimization, non-intrusive system observation methods, data-adaptable systems, and embedded system security. He has recently coauthored multiple textbooks, published by zyBooks, that utilize a web-native, interactive, and animated approach, which has been shown to increase student learning and achievements.

  5. Dr. Susan Lysecky zyBooks [biography]

    Susan received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 2006. She served as a faculty member at the University of Arizona from 2006-2014. She has a background in design automation and optimization for embedded systems, as well as experience in the development of accessible engineering curricula and learning technologies. She is currently the Director of Content at zyBooks, a startup that develops highly-interactive, web-­native textbooks for a variety of STEM disciplines.

Download paper (1020 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session

For those interested in:

  • Academia-Industry Connections

  • Follow Us
  • twitter
  • facebook
  • youtube
  • instagram
  • linkedin
  • 1818 N Street N.W. Suite 600, Washington DC 20036

  • Telephone: 202.331.3500 | Fax: 202.265.8504

  • © 2023 Copyright: ASEE.org All rights reserved. Privacy Policy.