9455614 Bagert 1The question to be addressed is: Can icon-based programming languages be used to teach first-year programming concepts to undergraduate students more effective!y than text-based languages? The specific objectives are: 1) To develop a complete set of course materials for BACCII, an already-existing iconic programming environment under ongoing development at Texas Tech University, and use them in the first two computer programming courses. For this project, the first course is an introduction to procedural programming, software engineering, and C, while the second course teaches concepts in object-oriented programming, data structures and C++. 2) To determine whether iconic environments (and BACCII in particular) can be used to more effectively teach procedural and object-oriented programming concepts in the first two courses, while still allowing students to learn the syntax of text-based languages such as C and C++. The grant would test out the course materials at Texas Tech, while a possible later grant would allow for pilot programs to be started at five higher education institutions. Data would be collected and evaluated not only for the general student population of each course, but for various groups such as women, underrepresented minorities and future teachers. 3) To advance research in the area of using iconic programming languages as learning environments. The results of the data will allow for an evaluation of how future iconic languages for learning programming skills should be developed. If it can be demonstrated that iconic languages perform significantly better than text-based languages in the learning of programming skills for a wide variety of schools and student groups, it could revolutionize how software development techniques are taught.
