ART- An Instrument for Developing Algorithmic Reasoning in Programmers

Despite the significant advances in Information systems adopted for several different courses, the failure rate for Introductory Programming Courses (IPCs) still remains high. At present, the formative activities used in IPCs focus on tracing tasks. However, there is no clear evidence that such tasks foster higher-level abstraction and cognitive reasoning skills needed for code writing. We propose an Algorithmic Reasoning Task system (ARTs) as an instrument, that can be adapted by existing information systems to develop reasoning skills for students learning programming. Our analysis of novice programmer performance reveals that code-writing tasks correlate higher with Algorithmic Reasoning Tasks (ARTs) than with traditional tracing tasks