Philip Vanneste

A Cognitive Model of Programming Knowledge for Procedural Languages

Recently many studies focusing on diverse aspects of programming knowledge were published. However, none of them proposes a complete model in which the contents and overall structure are defined. One of the first (and only) attempts to define such a model was made by Shneiderman, where he defines Programming Knowledge to contain two distinct knowledge bodies. We complement this model by defining the link between the syntactic and semantic knowledge. This link is constituted by the Semantically Augmented Programming Primitives (SAPPs). The paper is concerned in the definition of this ‘missing link’ in programming knowledge.

The use of reverse engineering to analyse student computer programs

In this paper, an explanatory program understander that can analyse student solutions for programming assignments is described. The approach uses a number of reverse engineering techniques and is grounded on a cognitive model of procedural programming knowledge. It will be shown that, through the use of reverse engineering techniques, a lot of feedback (e.g. on errors) can be generated without having to use any prior knowledge on what the program is supposed to do. When such information is available, problem-specific feedback can also be generated. Furthermore, the use of the cognitive programming concepts allows one to specify the errors in an understandable way using exactly the same words and concepts as human programmers. This opens interesting possibilities for other uses of the proposed program understanding technique described in this article.

Panel Discussion: The Use of Internet in Education

Internet is a relatively new medium with a lot of potential applications for education. Maybe, the main benefit of Intemet is the possibility to make learning material available to people all over the world, without limitations of space and time. However, a lot of challenges remain: adapting existing material to the new interface, integrating Intemet in real teaching and learning situations, finding high quality and reliable information, making the information available in developing countries ....