THE ROLE OF EXAMPLES IN THE TEACHING OF PROGRAMMING-LANGUAGES

A common assumption made by teachers of programming languages, especia lly those teaching adults, is that their primary (core) teaching mater ial consists of text, by which we mean rules, instructions, explanatio ns, and discussions. Worked examples are seen as secondary, serving me rely to illustrate the core material. We present evidence to demonstra te that young adult students do not share this assumption. Given instr uction in the form of demonstrably clear text and worked examples, the y do not treat the text as the primary source of information, but rath er seem to focus on the worked examples. Worked examples may be seen a s being the primary source of learning material even when they are not fully understood, but bear some superficial similarity to the task in hand.