Abstract
Threshold concepts, as introduced by Meyer and Land (2003), have been the focus of many studies which aim to explore and understand students’ conceptual difficulties within the disciplines. In computer programming specifically, these efforts focus on higher education and concentrate mostly on the broad area of programming. Now that programming is increasingly being embedded in schools, it is critical for research to identify and consider the difficulties that school students confront in this subject. To this end, this study aims to address a gap in our understanding of concepts and skills involved in the practice of computer programming in school settings and specifically, at key stage 4 and 5 (14-18-year-old students).The thesis explores students’ difficulties in programming through the three lenses of threshold concepts, misconceptions and affect, and narrows down the problem area to a specific topic in programming, that of functions. Research in this area of programming highlights that functions are problematic for students, an area where misconceptions arise, and a potential threshold concept itself. Therefore, the thesis first identifies potential threshold concepts and misconceptions that students experience in functions by exploring both computing teachers’ perspectives as well as students. To explore in more detail how students experience liminality, a particularly unstable and difficult state, the thesis investigates the role of the affective domain and particularly the role of several affective constructs on students’ progress in this subject: self-efficacy and calibration, task value, sense of belonging, motivation, and computer science identity. The results of this investigation led to the characterisation of parameters, parameter passing and return values as a threshold conception and of procedural decomposition as a procedural threshold (threshold skill) in computer programming. Moreover, the study revealed three new misconceptions that students experience in functions as well as that students in liminal space experience statistically significant lower levels of self-efficacy in programming and computer science identity than students in post-liminal space. The results also highlight the role of troublesome knowledge on students’ self-efficacy, motivation and sense of belonging and lead to a discussion regarding the limits between liminality and post-liminal state.
The findings of the research study contribute to the methodology of identifying threshold concepts, to the threshold concept framework and to computer programming education.
| Date of Award | 1 Jul 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Sue Sentance (Supervisor) & Lulu Healy (Supervisor) |