Students' Conceptions of Computer Programming

Michael Thuné and Anna Eckerdal

September 2010

Abstract:

The present work has its focus on university level engineering education students that do not intend to major in computer science but still have to take a mandatory programming course. Phenomenography is applied to empirical data in the form of semi-structured interviews with students who had recently taken an introductory programming course. A phenomenographic outcome space is presented, with five qualitatively different categories of description of students ways of seeing computer programming.

Note: The phenomenographic outcome space presented in this report has previously been published as part of a journal article (Thuné and Eckerdal 2009). Due to space limitations in the journal publication, we have found it appropriate to make available a more comprehensive description of the outcome space, in the present technical report.

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