AN INTELLIGENT TOOL TO AID STUDENTS IN LEARNING 2ND AND SUBSEQUENT PROGRAMMING-LANGUAGES

This paper reports on the design rationale and formative evaluation of an intelligent tool to aid intermediate and advanced student programm ers, who already have knowledge of another programming language, in ac quiring a working knowledge of key parts of the Ada programming langua ge. Research on transfer between programming languages has shown that, while previous programming experience helps students to learn subsequ ent languages, it also can be a source of negative transfer. In partic ular, students have little trouble with the syntax of the new language , but they do have difficulty in planning a solution which takes advan tage of the features of the new language. Our tool, ADAPT, applies exi sting artificial intelligence technologies to the pedagogical problem of transfer between programming languages, with emphasis on the proble m of developing programming plans which are appropriate to Ada. ADAPT was designed based on the findings of research in the cognition of pro gramming; A prototype of the tool was developed, and a formative evalu ation was carried out to evaluate the cognitively-based design decisio ns guiding ADAPT. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.