skip to main content
10.1145/2983468.2983511acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagescompsystechConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Modula-2 versus Java as the first programming language: Evaluation of students' performance

Published: 23 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

The choice of the first programming language in computer science curricula is a complex multi-faceted issue that needs to be addressed from multiple points of view. In this paper we adopt the perspective of the teacher, and after surveying factors such as language features, programming paradigms, curricular concerns and students' perceptions, we present extended results of the empirical assessment of student performance at our introductory programming course, where a switch was recently made from Modula-2 to Java, keeping the course structurally unchanged. Our main aim is to investigate the impact of the first programming language to the acquisition of essential programming concepts, techniques and principles. New results involving students' high-school GPA and performance at other courses, backed up by thorough statistical analysis, remove some potential sources of bias regarding students' learning and cognitive abilities, reaffirming the overall conclusion that the programming language used in the introductory programming course does not have a deep impact on the acquisition of essential concepts, techniques and principles of the imperative programming style.

References

[1]
H. Abelson, G. J. Sussman and J. Sussman. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Second Edition, MIT Press, 1996.
[2]
J. Beckett. Why Enrollment Is Surging in Machine Learning Classes. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/02/24/enrollment-in-machine-learning/, 2016.
[3]
L. Böszörményi. Why Java is not my favorite first-course language. Software - Concepts & Tools, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1998, pp. 141--145.
[4]
N. Cunniff, R. P. Taylor and J. B. Black. Does programming language affect the type of conceptual bugs in beginners' programs? A comparison of FPL and Pascal. In Proc. SIGCHI Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 1986, pp. 175--182.
[5]
W. Feller. On the Kolmogorov-Smirnov limit theorems for empirical distributions, The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1948, pp. 177--189.
[6]
G. L. Goosen, E. Mentz and E. Nieuwoudt. Choosing the "Best" Programming Language?! In Proc. Computer Science and IT Education Conference, 2007, pp. 269--282.
[7]
D. Gupta. 2004. What is a good first programming language? Crossroads Vol. 10, No. 4, 2004, p. 7.
[8]
S. Hadjerrouit. 1998. Java as first programming language: A critical evaluation. SIGCSE Bull. Vol. 30, No. 2, 1998, pp. 43--47.
[9]
M. Hitz and M. Hudec. Modula-2 versus C++ as a first programming language--- some empirical results. In Proc. 26th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), 1995, pp. 317--321.
[10]
M. Ivanović and Z. Budimac. First programming language -- never-ending story. In Proc. Symposium on Computer Languages, Implementations, and Tools (SCLIT), 2013, pp. 353--356.
[11]
M. Ivanović, Z. Budimac, M. Radovanović and M. Savić. Does the choice of the first programming language influence students' grades? In Proc. 16th Int. Conf. on Computer Systems and Technologies (CompSysTech), 2015, pp. 305--312.
[12]
H. B. Mann and D. R. Whitney. On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 18. No. 1, 1947, pp. 50--60.
[13]
I. D. Sanders and S. Langford. Students' perceptions of Python as a first programming language at Wits. In Proc. 13th Annual Conf. on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), 2008, pp. 365--365.
[14]
M. Savić, M. Ivanović, Z. Budimac and M. Radovanović. Do students' programming skills depend on programming language? In Proc. 5th Symposium on Computer Languages, Implementations and Tools (SCLIT), 2015, in print.
[15]
M. Vujošević-Janičić and D. Tošić, The role of programming paradigms in the first programming courses. The Teaching of Mathematics, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2008, pp. 63--83.
  1. Modula-2 versus Java as the first programming language: Evaluation of students' performance

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Information & Contributors

      Information

      Published In

      cover image ACM Other conferences
      CompSysTech '16: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies 2016
      June 2016
      466 pages
      ISBN:9781450341820
      DOI:10.1145/2983468
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

      In-Cooperation

      • UORB: University of Ruse, Bulgaria
      • TECHUVB: Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 23 June 2016

      Permissions

      Request permissions for this article.

      Check for updates

      Author Tags

      1. Introductory programming course
      2. change of the first programming language
      3. empirical evaluation
      4. students' performance

      Qualifiers

      • Research-article
      • Research
      • Refereed limited

      Conference

      CompSysTech '16

      Acceptance Rates

      CompSysTech '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 55 of 117 submissions, 47%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 241 of 492 submissions, 49%

      Contributors

      Other Metrics

      Bibliometrics & Citations

      Bibliometrics

      Article Metrics

      • 0
        Total Citations
      • 98
        Total Downloads
      • Downloads (Last 12 months)10
      • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
      Reflects downloads up to 14 Jan 2025

      Other Metrics

      Citations

      View Options

      Login options

      View options

      PDF

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader

      Media

      Figures

      Other

      Tables

      Share

      Share

      Share this Publication link

      Share on social media