This study examined the effectiveness of sketching flow diagrams in facilitating CS1 students’ problem solving and performance on code writing tasks. Five students received training in design strategies and sketched flow diagrams prior to implementing their solution by writing code. Procedures in solving a sequence of four problems depicted in sketches and captured in keystroke log data were coded and scored for each student. The study results showed that specific and generative depictions of procedures predict the correctness of edits made to solutions.
Ida Ngambeki Purdue University, Matt Bishop The University of California, Davis, Jun Dai California State University, Sacramento, Phil Nico California Polytechnic State University