Problems with understanding concepts, so called misconceptions, have been investigated and reported in a number of studies regarding object-oriented programming [4], [3]. In a first programming course using an object-oriented language, it is of great importance that students get a good understanding of central concepts like object and class at an early stage of their education. We have, with a phenomenographic research approach, performed a study with first year university students, investigating what an understanding of the concepts object and class includes from a student perspective. By applying variation theory [8] to our results we are able to pin-point what the students need to be able to discern in order to gain a "rich" understanding of these concepts.
This paper examines software designs produced by students nearing completion of their Computer Science degrees. The results of this multi-national, multi-institutional experiment present some interesting implications for educators.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.