Learning to Program: Mapping Errors and Misconceptions of Python Novices to Support the Design of Intelligent Programming Tutors

Lisa van der Heyden, Fatma Batur, Irene-Angelica Chounta

2025

Abstract

Students often struggle with basic programming tasks after their first programming course. Adaptive tutoring systems can support students’ practice by generating tasks, providing feedback, and evaluating students’ progress in real-time. Here, we describe the first step for building such a system focusing on designing tasks that address common errors and misconceptions. To that end, we compiled a collection of Python tasks for novices. In particular, a) we identified errors occurring during introductory programming and mapped them to learning tasks; b) we conducted a survey to validate our mapping; c) we conducted semi-structured interviews with instructors to understand potential reasons for such errors and best practices for addressing them. Synthesizing our findings, we discuss the creation of a tasks’ corpus to serve as a basis for adaptive tutors. This work contributes to the standardization and systematization of computing education and provides insights regarding the design of learning tasks tailored to addressing errors.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

van der Heyden L., Batur F. and Chounta I. (2025). Learning to Program: Mapping Errors and Misconceptions of Python Novices to Support the Design of Intelligent Programming Tutors. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU; ISBN 978-989-758-746-7, SciTePress, pages 224-231. DOI: 10.5220/0013203100003932

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu25,
author={Lisa van der Heyden and Fatma Batur and Irene-Angelica Chounta},
title={Learning to Program: Mapping Errors and Misconceptions of Python Novices to Support the Design of Intelligent Programming Tutors},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU},
year={2025},
pages={224-231},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013203100003932},
isbn={978-989-758-746-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU
TI - Learning to Program: Mapping Errors and Misconceptions of Python Novices to Support the Design of Intelligent Programming Tutors
SN - 978-989-758-746-7
AU - van der Heyden L.
AU - Batur F.
AU - Chounta I.
PY - 2025
SP - 224
EP - 231
DO - 10.5220/0013203100003932
PB - SciTePress