A Summary of Misconceptions of High School Basic Programmers

Ralph T. Putnam

D. Sleeman

Juliet A. Baxter

Laiani K. Kuspa

This study examined high school students' knowledge about constructs in the BASIC programming language. A screening test was administered to ninety-six students, fiity-six of whom were interviewed. Students were asked t o trace simple programs and predict their output. Errors in virtually all BASIC constructs we examined were observed, with many of the misconceptions arising from the application of knowledge and reasoning from informal domains to programming. It is argued that a lack of knowledge of basic features of progamming language will prevent students from developing the higher-level cognitive skills that much programming instruction is intended to foster.