Teaching abstraction in computer science to young students

Leading team:

• Prof. Michal Armoni

Project team:

• Dr. David Statter

Brief

Abstraction is one of the most fundamental ideas of computer science (CS). Research has shown that students encounter serious difficulties in achieving meaningful learning of abstraction. This study examined the implementation of a framework intended for teaching abstraction in CS to novices in the context of an introductory CS course for 7th grade students. Our findings demonstrate how the framework can be implemented in this specific context, and indicate the high effectiveness of the resulting teaching strategy. During the course of this study, we have developed an innovative operational definition of CS abstraction that served as the basis for a deep assessment of the students’ abilities of CS abstraction.

This is the doctoral research of Dr. David Statter.

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