this report, we describe and illustrate our framework using a detailed analysis of the Galapagos Pilot project. We will also use the framework to illustrate important design issues to be considered when creating new educational multimedia.

The programming walkthrough is a method for assessing how easy or hard...

This study intended to investigate two areas of end-user programming: the influence of individual differences on success and whether or not groups of programming, testing, and debugging style would naturally cluster together and provide predictive value. Eighty-six participants, from backgrounds of computer science, psychology, engineering and humanities completed at battery of psychological tests and attempted to complete a timed programming task and testing and debugging task in Stata, a statistical programming environment intended for use by individuals with no programming experience. General intelligence and programming experience were good predictors of programming success. Three types of programming strategies were found: (1) the programmers group used their background knowledge to solve the programming task with little effort; (2) the lost/unmotivated group tended to exhibit repetitive and shallow problem solving; (3) the lost/motivated group tended to search for more information and exhibit more guess and check behavior. There were three types of testing and debugging strategies, but no good predictors of success: (1) the curious/distracted group ignored the task and became distracted; (2) the hesitant/focused group sought little information and

There is little doubt that examples play a major role in acquiring a new skill. How examples improve learning, however, is subject to some debate. Recently, two different classes of theories have been proposed to explain why examples are such an effective manner of learning. Example Generalization models suggest that problem solving rules are acquired while studying examples. Knowledge Compilation models, on the other hand, suggest that examples are useful because they guide future problem solving, where the necessary rules are created. General support for the knowledge compilation model was found and tradeoffs between studying examples and solving problems are discussed. Guidelines for when to study examples and when to solve problems are also presented. Introduction Typical instruction in problem solving domains includes expository text, annotated examples, and problems to solve. Text expositions usually consist of history, terminology, and descriptions of procedures for solving p...