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Hunting high and low: instruments to detect misconceptions related to algorithms and data structures

Authors:

Jan VahrenholdAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '13: Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

Pages 29 - 34

https://doi.org/10.1145/2445196.2445212

Published: 06 March 2013 Publication History

Abstract

We present the result of assessing first-year students' misconceptions related to algorithms and data structures. Our study confirms findings from previous small-scale studies but additionally broadens the scope of the topics and methods investigated. The evaluation of our experiments sheds light on dependencies between active and passive knowledge as well as on the instruments used; in particular, we conclude that there is no "one size fits all" instrument but that instruments should be selected depending on the topic at hand.

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Cited By

Liu JGoodwin EFranklin DStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)Student Utilization of Metacognitive Strategies in Solving Dynamic Programming ProblemsProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701888(687-693)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701888
Tilanterä ASorva JSeppälä OKorhonen A(2024)Students Struggle with Concepts in Dijkstra's AlgorithmProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671096(154-165)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671096
Miedema DLiut MFletcher GAivaloglou E(2023)“There is no ambiguity on what to return”: Investigating the Prevalence of SQL MisconceptionsProceedings of the 23rd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3631802.3631821(1-12)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3631802.3631821
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Index Terms

Hunting high and low: instruments to detect misconceptions related to algorithms and data structures
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '13: Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

March 2013

818 pages

ISBN:9781450318686

DOI:10.1145/2445196

Conference Chairs:
Tracy Camp
Colorado School of Mines
,
Paul Tymann
Rochester Institute of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Kris Nagel
Georgia Gwinnett College

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

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: 06 March 2013

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SIGCSE '13

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SIGCSE

SIGCSE '13: The 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 6 - 9, 2013

Colorado, Denver, USA

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SIGCSE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 111 of 293 submissions, 38%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,787 of 5,146 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Liu JGoodwin EFranklin DStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)Student Utilization of Metacognitive Strategies in Solving Dynamic Programming ProblemsProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701888(687-693)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701888
Tilanterä ASorva JSeppälä OKorhonen A(2024)Students Struggle with Concepts in Dijkstra's AlgorithmProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671096(154-165)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671096
Miedema DLiut MFletcher GAivaloglou E(2023)“There is no ambiguity on what to return”: Investigating the Prevalence of SQL MisconceptionsProceedings of the 23rd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3631802.3631821(1-12)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3631802.3631821
Kohn TKomm DLaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Coping With Scoping: Understanding Scope and ParametersProceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3587102.3588798(201-207)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3587102.3588798
Shindler MPinpin NMarkovic MReiber FKim JCarlos GDogucu MHong MLuu MAnderson BCote AFerland MJain PLaBonte TMathur LMoreno RSakuma R(2022)Student misconceptions of dynamic programming: a replication studyComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.207986532:3(288-312)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2022.2079865
Shi YShah KWang WMarwan SPenmetsa PPrice TScheffel MDowell NJoksimovic SSiemens G(2021)Toward Semi-Automatic Misconception Discovery Using Code EmbeddingsLAK21: 11th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference10.1145/3448139.3448205(606-612)Online publication date: 12-Apr-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3448139.3448205
Zavgorodniaia ATilanterä AKorhonen ASeppälä OHellas ASorva J(2021)Algorithm Visualization and the Elusive Modality EffectProceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3446871.3469747(368-378)Online publication date: 16-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3446871.3469747
Almadhoun EParham-Mocello J(2021)Identifying Student Misunderstandings About Singly Linked Lists in the C Programming Language2021 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL/HCC51201.2021.9576162(1-9)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/VL/HCC51201.2021.9576162
Almadhoun EParham-Mocello J(2021)Exploratory Study on Accuracy of Students' Mental Models of a Singly Linked List2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637318(1-9)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637318
Nelson GStrömbäck FKorhonen ABegum MBlamey BJin KLonati VMacKellar BMonga MRößling GKrogstie BGiannakos MSindre GLuxton-Reilly ADivitini M(2020)Differentiated Assessments for Advanced Courses that Reveal Issues with Prerequisite SkillsProceedings of the Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3437800.3439204(75-129)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3437800.3439204
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