Mental Models of Recursion

Dicheva, Darina; Close, John S.

doi:10.2190/agg9-a5ud-dek0-80en

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Two of these are reported by Kahney (1992) and Dicheva and Close (1996). Kahney's work involved observing novice programmers designing recursive solutions in a LOGO-like data base manipulation language, and choosing a correct solution to a speci®ed problem from several alternatives.…”

Section: Recursion Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Models and areas for CS education research

Stasko¹,

Guzdial²,

Clancy³

et al. 2001

Proceedings of the Thirty-Second SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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Section: Recursion Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Models and areas for CS education research

Stasko¹,

Guzdial²,

Clancy³

et al. 2001

Proceedings of the Thirty-Second SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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“…Demonstrating it for a specific problem and in a specific context is necessary in order to explain it, but may not be sufficient to achieve nonspecific transfer [Schwill 1994], that is, to induce significant learning that will enable students to use reduction for solving other problems in other contexts. This difficulty is common to all CS fundamental ideas, and is already recognized and reported in the literature for several concepts, usually referred to as soft concepts [Corder 1990], such as abstraction [e.g., Or-Bach and Lavy 2004;Sanders and Thomas 2007;Turner et al 2008], recursion [e.g., DiCheva andClose 1996;Kahney 1983;Levi 2001], encapsulation [e.g., Turner et al 2008] and programming paradigm [Stolin and Hazzan 2007]. The appropriate, effective way to teach fundamental ideas, according to Bruner [1960], is in a spiral manner, which touches many contexts at various levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction in CS

Armoni

2009

J. Educ. Resour. Comput.

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Reduction is a problem-solving strategy, relevant to various areas of computer science, and strongly connected to abstraction: a reductive solution necessitates establishing a connection among problems that may seem totally disconnected at first sight, and abstracts the solution to the reduced-to problem by encapsulating it as a black box. The study described in this article continues a previous, qualitative study that examined the ways undergraduate computer science students perceive, experience, and use reduction as a problem-solving strategy. The current study examines the same issue, but in the context of a larger population, using also quantitative analysis, and focusing on algorithmic problems. The findings indicate difficulties students have with the abstract characteristics of reduction and with acknowledging reduction as a general problem-solving strategy. ACM Reference Format:Armoni, M. 2009. Reduction in CS: A (mostly) quantitative analysis of reductive solutions to algorithmic problems. ACM J. Educ. Resour.

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“…Difficulties with recursion were thoroughly studied in the past two decades. The focus of all the studies was on student comprehension of the basic concept and construct of recursion (e.g., [2,3,4,5,8,13]). However, recursion is not just a concept-construct element, it also is a problem-solving heuristic, which encapsulates backward reasoning and a reverse train of thought [10,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do senior CS students capitalize on recursion?

Ginat

2004

Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

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CS students learn and practice recursion in CS1, Data-Structures, Introduction-to-Algorithms, and additional courses throughout the curriculum. Previous studies revealed difficulties of CS1 students with the concept and the construct of recursion. What about advanced students? They may well understand the concept and the construct of recursion; but do they invoke and utilize recursion as a problem solving means? The paper examines this aspect, with senior CS students. The students were given three algorithmic tasks, for which the suitable solution approach was recursive. The student solutions and explanations demonstrate very limited capitalization on recursion as a problem solving means. We discuss the findings and suggest pedagogical implications for teaching.

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Mental Models of Recursion

Cited by 18 publications

References 13 publications

Models and areas for CS education research

Models and areas for CS education research

Reduction in CS

Do senior CS students capitalize on recursion?

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