David B. Palumbo

The Effect of Basic Instruction on Problem Solving Skills over an Extended Period of Time

In this study twelve undergraduate students were exposed to sixteen weeks of BASIC instruction. A repeated measures design was set up to measure changes in problem solving and computer anxiety at the 0-week, 4-week, 9-week, and 16-week intervals. Language competency measures were also collected and related to problem solving. Results include a significant increase in problem-solving skills from pretreatment to posttreatment, with the greatest increase occurring during the 4-week to 16-week interval. Related to this finding was a significant decrease in computer anxiety from pretreatment to posttreatment, with the greatest decrease occurring during the 0-week to 4-week interval. Based on these two findings, we have inferred that student programmers need first to accommodate system-related anxiety before they can adequately learn features of the BASIC programming language that affect problem solving. We also related problem-solving skills and language competency measures and found significant, positive correlations—that is, those who performed better when using the language, via a midterm test on BASIC, an instructional piece of software they developed, and final course grade, also scored higher on the problem-solving instruments. These findings strongly suggest a link between language competency and problem solving.

The Effect of BASIC Programming Language Instruction on High School Students’ Problem Solving Ability and Computer Anxiety

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between BASIC programming language instruction and high school students’ problem solving skills and computer anxiety. Specific attention was placed on five critical issues concerning this area of research: (a) sufficient attention to problem solving theory, (b) issues related to the programming treatment, (c) the programming language selected and the method of instruction, (d) system-related issues, and (e) the selection of an appropriate sample. Twenty-two high school students participated in a 15-week computer treatment, 11 of whom received BASIC instruction and the other 11 received general Computer Literacy instruction. Students in the BASIC treatment group showed a significant increase in their problem solving ability, whereas the students in the Computer Literacy treatment did not. Although both groups did show a significant decrease in computer anxiety, there was no significant difference between the groups. There were also signi...

Rationale for Construction of Microcomputer-Based Evaluation Subsytems

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to use the microcomputer to extend the notion of evaluation to establish and improve the reliability and validity of an evaluation instrument. A computerized testing program collected performance data of both students and the evaluation instrument at the local level. The study was conducted in two cycles. In the first cycle potentially flawed items were identified, removed from the test pool, and then examined by the instructional staff. The faulty items were revised by the instructional staff and reinserted in the test pool. In Cycle 2 of the study, the entire test pool was readministered. Of the 34 flagged items in Cycle 1, 20 items fell within the acceptable range during Cycle 2. An added benefit to these revisions was that the mean score for each of the six behavioral objectives reflected by the test pool increased, while the standard deviation for each objective decreased. In addition to the discussion of this process in terms of reliability and validity, a discu...