Students’ Pre-Instruction Programming Perceptions in Upper-Secondary School: Findings from a Diagnostic Pilot

Overview

This pilot study examined students' pre-instruction conceptions of programming in Grade 11 by administering a diagnostic instrument designed to identify foundational knowledge and misconceptions prior to formal instruction. The diagnostic assessed understanding across five conceptual clusters: program definition, language recognition, variables and data representation, basic conditionals, and elementary loop semantics. The instrument combined multiple-choice and True/False items aligned with documented novice difficulties in the literature.

Methods and approach

A pre-instruction diagnostic was administered to Grade 11 students at a single upper-secondary school. The assessment instrument was structured around five conceptual clusters derived from established programming education literature regarding common student misconceptions. Items included both multiple-choice and True/False formats to enable analysis of response patterns and item type effects. Response data were analyzed to identify strengths and persistent weaknesses across the conceptual domains.

Key Findings

Students demonstrated partial familiarity with simple control constructs but exhibited consistent weaknesses in foundational areas. Specific difficulties included distinguishing programs from algorithms, understanding variables as memory locations, and recognizing the role of guard condition change in loop termination. A notable format effect emerged wherein True/False recognition-based items were answered more successfully than multiple-choice discrimination items, suggesting differential cognitive demands across item types.

Implications

The findings indicate that early programming instruction should employ instructional sequencing that bridges from recognition-level understanding to explanation and short code construction tasks. Teachers should anticipate and explicitly address foundational misconceptions regarding program definition, variable semantics, and loop control mechanisms before advancing to more complex programming concepts. The format effect suggests pedagogical utility in structuring initial instruction to scaffold from recognition tasks toward more demanding analytical tasks. While the single-site pilot scope limits generalizability, the results provide a practical baseline for refining diagnostic instruments and informing initial instructional sequencing in upper-secondary programming curricula.