Computer programming has been taught in secondary schools for more than two decades. However, little is known about how students learn to program. From the curriculum implementation perspectives, learning style helps address the issue of learner differences, resulting in a shift from a teachercentred approach to a learner-focused approach. This study aims to investigate the effects of gender and learning styles on computer programming performance. The Gregorc Style Delineator (GSD) was employed to measure learning styles. A test was administered to assess students' programming performance. Two hundred and seventeen secondary school students of age from 14 to 19 participated in this study. Results indicated that no gender differences in programming performance were found after controlling for the effect of student ability. Academic ability had a differential effect on programming knowledge. Sequential learners in general performed better than random learners. These results suggest the importance of the ordering dimension of the GSD in influencing programming performance. Implications of the findings in relation to programming pedagogy are discussed in this paper.
IntroductionThe development of educational computing has emerged over the last two decades. Although advanced technology tools can be integrated into different curricula, learning to program still plays a role in promoting information literacy in technology education. Despite the fact that learner differences are one of the major concerns in recent
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.