Analysis of research into the teaching and learning of programming

This paper presents an analysis of research papers about programming education that were published in computing education conferences in the years 2005 to 2008. We employed Simon’s classification scheme to identify the papers of interest from the ICER, SIGCSE, ITiCSE, ACE, Koli Calling and NACCQ conferences. Having identified the papers, we analyzed the type of data collected, whether the analysis was qualitative, quantitative, or mixed, and the aims and outcomes being reported. The greatest number of papers employed quantitative research methods, investigated the ability, aptitude, or understanding of students, and were based in single courses. The theme of the research and the type of study conducted vary across the conferences, indicating the different nature and role of each conference. Papers that investigated student learning of programming in terms of established theories or models of learning were not common, indicating an area of research that deserves more attention