Misconceptions and Attitudes that Interfere with Learning to Program

Michael Clancy

An instructor of an introductory programming course, on grading exams, notices that a significant number of students are coming up with the same wrong answers; a student arrives at the instructor’s office with program bugs relating to language constructs covered a month ago and exercised ever since; a teaching assistant says, “I tell them and tell them, but they still don’t get it right!”