@inproceedings{19c2dd3a382949dfa61633f98cdb0f4a,
title = "Subgoals, context, and worked examples in learning computing problem solving",
abstract = "Recent empirical results suggest that the instructional material used to teach computing may actually overload students' cognitive abilities. Better designed materials may enhance learning by reducing unnecessary load. Subgoal labels have been shown to be effective at reducing the cognitive load during problem solving in both mathematics and science. Until now, subgoal labels have been given to students to learn passively. We report on a study to determine if giving learners subgoal labels is more or less effective than asking learners to generate subgoal labels within an introductory CS programming task. The answers are mixed and depend on other features of the instructional materials. We found that student performance gains did not replicate as expected in the introductory CS task for those who were given subgoal labels. Computer science may require different kinds of problem-solving or may generate different cognitive demands than mathematics or science.",
keywords = "Cognitive load, Contextual transfer, Subgoal labels",
author = "Morrison, {Briana B.} and Margulieux, {Lauren E.} and Mark Guzdial",
note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank the students who participated in the study and their instructors who graciously gave us the time. We also thank the anonymous reviewers who supplied comments which improved this paper. This work is funded in part by the National Science Foundation under grant 1138378. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.; 11th Annual ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, ICER 2015 ; Conference date: 09-08-2015 Through 13-08-2015",
year = "2015",
month = jul,
day = "9",
doi = "10.1145/2787622.2787733",
language = "English (US)",
series = "ICER 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",
pages = "21--30",
booktitle = "ICER 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research",
}