Article

Which pointer errors do students make?

Authors:

Bruce Adcock,

Paolo Bucci,

Wayne D. Heym,

Joseph E. Hollingsworth,

Timothy Long,

Bruce W. WeideAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '07: Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

Pages 9 - 13

https://doi.org/10.1145/1227310.1227317

Published: 07 March 2007 Publication History

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Abstract

A model and a taxonomy to characterize pointer manipulations are introduced, along with an instrumentation technology that leverages them to provide students with immediate reports of pointer errors in C++ programs. Data collected from CS2 student assignments show that the vast majority of student pointer errors either would not have been noticed at all, or would have been detected only much later in execution, if this infrastructure were not used. Possible applications of the underlying technology--both to conduct long-term educational research into students' understanding of pointers, and to improve pedagogy directly--are discussed.

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Cited By

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Brieven GBaum VDonnet B(2024)Tartare: Automatic Generation of C Pointer Statements and FeedbackProceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3636243.3636264(192-201)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3636243.3636264
Jerkins JRawajfih YRay D(2023)Common C++ Pointer Misconceptions: Essence and TreatmentJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3636988.363700739:3(76-85)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3636988.3637007
Rong WXu TSun ZSun ZOuyang YXiong Z(2023)An Object Tuple Model for Understanding Pointer and Array in C LanguageIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.323602766:4(318-329)Online publication date: Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3236027
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Information

Published In

SIGCSE '07: Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

March 2007

634 pages

ISBN:1595933611

DOI:10.1145/1227310

General Chairs:
Ingrid Russell
University of Hartford
,
Susan Haller
SUNY Potsdam
,
Program Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Susan Rodger
Duke University

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 39, Issue 1
March 2007
581 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1227504
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 07 March 2007

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SIGCSE07: The 38th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 7 - 11, 2007

Kentucky, Covington, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

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Brieven GBaum VDonnet B(2024)Tartare: Automatic Generation of C Pointer Statements and FeedbackProceedings of the 26th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3636243.3636264(192-201)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3636243.3636264
Jerkins JRawajfih YRay D(2023)Common C++ Pointer Misconceptions: Essence and TreatmentJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3636988.363700739:3(76-85)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3636988.3637007
Rong WXu TSun ZSun ZOuyang YXiong Z(2023)An Object Tuple Model for Understanding Pointer and Array in C LanguageIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.323602766:4(318-329)Online publication date: Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3236027
Heinsen Egan MMcDonald C(2020)An evaluation of SeeC: a tool designed to assist novice C programmers with program understanding and debuggingComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2020.177703431:3(340-373)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2020
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2020.1777034
McGill MPollock IScharlau BMcDermott RPears ASabin M(2019)If Memory ServesProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3304221.3325550(241-242)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3304221.3325550
McGill MJohnson CAtlas JBouchard DMessom CPollock IScott MSheard JKorhonen A(2018)If Memory ServesProceedings of the 2017 ITiCSE Conference on Working Group Reports10.1145/3174781.3174783(25-46)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3174781.3174783
Ihantola PVihavainen AAhadi AButler MBörstler JEdwards SIsohanni EKorhonen APetersen ARivers KRubio MSheard JSkupas BSpacco JSzabo CToll DRagonis NKinnunen P(2015)Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics in ProgrammingProceedings of the 2015 ITiCSE on Working Group Reports10.1145/2858796.2858798(41-63)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858796.2858798
Adam Basigie M(2022)THE IMPACT OF COMBINING FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS AND WORKED EXAMPLES IN PROGRAM VISUALIZATION TOOL ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ HELD MENTAL MODELS OF POINTERS’ VALUE AND ADDRESS ASSIGNMENTEducation & Pedagogy Journal10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64(53-64)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.23951/2782-2575-2022-2-53-64
Craig MPetersen A(2016)Student difficulties with pointer concepts in CProceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference10.1145/2843043.2843348(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2843043.2843348
Cetin ISendurur ESendurur P(2014)Assessing the Impact of Meta-Cognitive Training on Students' Understanding of Introductory Programming ConceptsJournal of Educational Computing Research10.2190/EC.50.4.d50:4(507-524)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2014
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