What's wrong? Understanding beginners' problems with Prolog

This paper reviews psychological research on programming and applies it to the problems of learning and teaching Prolog. We present a psychological model that explains how a certain class of errors in programs comes about. The model fits quite well with the results of a small sample of students and problems. The problems that underlie these and other errors seem to be (a) the complexity of the Prolog primitives (unification and backtracking) and (b) the misfit between students' naive solutions to a problem and the constructs that are available in Prolog (e.g. iterative solutions do not map easily to recursive programs). This suggests that learning Prolog could be helped by (1) coherent and detailed instruction about how Prolog works, (2) emphasis on finding recursive solutions that do not rely on primitives such as assignment and (3) instruction in programming techniques that allow students to implement procedural solutions.     

Automatic debugging of Prolog programs in a Prolog Intelligent Tutoring System

This paper describes an approach to the debugging of student Prolog programs in a Prolog Intelligent Tutoring System (PITS) that detects errors in them and proposes the corrections necessary to fix them. It proposes the use of multiple sources of expertise to analyse Prolog programs for tutoring purposes, and the collaboration of these sources for understanding student programs, detection of bugs and suggesting fixes to buggy student programs. It also demonstrates the use of a heuristic bestfirst search of the program decomposition space to parse a Prolog program into a hierarchical structure of predicate definitions, clauses, subgoals, arguments and terms. This article illustrates the merits of an algorithm-based approach supplemented by multiple sources of expertise for program debugging by showing that APROPOS2 is an effective, realistic and useful tool for program debugging. It then highlights the difficulties inherent in debugging Prolog programs and discusses the limitations of our algorithm-based approach.     

Using psychometric technology in educational assessment: The case of a schema-based isomorphic approach to the automatic generation of quantitative reasoning items

This article deals with the investigation of the psychometric quality and constructs validity of algebra word problems generated by means of a schema-based version of the automatic min–max approach. Based on review of the research literature in algebra word problem solving and automatic item generation this new approach is introduced as a theory-based top–down method of automatic item generation featuring a quality control framework aimed to minimize the construct unrelated variance in the item parameters. The first study deals with the evaluation of an initial set of items. The results are replicated in the second study using a larger item set which also allows the investigation of the construct representation of the generated item. Since construct unrelated variance components (e.g. reading comprehension) have been controlled for in the item generation phase the results revealed some interesting insights into the cognitive processes of the actual mathematization phase of algebra word problem solving. The third study investigated the nomothetic span is using hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis. The results argue for the convergent and discriminant validity of the automatically generated items. Taken together, the results indicate that the automatic generation of construct valid algebra word problems at a high psychometric level is viable. The discussion is thus concerned with the implications of this new approach to item generation for theory development and evaluation as well as practical benefits for educational assessment and the development of intelligent tutoring systems.     

An evaluation of APT: an Animated Program Tracer for novice Prolog programmers

This paper describes an approach to evaluating the usefulness of an Animated Program Tracer (APT) in communicating run-time information to novice Prolo programmers. The method used in the evaluation consists of a set of programs which have been specially designed to elicit how novices think Prolog programs are executed, and thus to reveal how accurate their model of program execution is. Two experiments are reported. The first determines the misconceptions that novices hold about the runtime actions of the Prolog interpreter, and produces six different categories of misconception. The second experiment investigates the ability of APT to communicate run-time information to novice Prolog programmers. A scoring technique was used to interpret subjects' answers, and shows that there was a significant improvement in the scores of the group who saw programs traced by APT when compared with a control group who saw no trace.     

A fine-grained account of Prolog execution for teaching and debugging

A clear and consistent execution model of any programming language can lay the foundations not only for a good leaming experience, but also for a smoother design/edit/run/debug cycle. In this paper, we describe our attempt to construct precisely such a model for the logic programming language Prolog, based upon a notational extension of logic programming's traditional AND/OR trees. Our extension, called the AORTA diagram, is an And/OR Tree, Augmented to include invocation history status boxes at each node. This augmentation makes it possible to present a graphical view of Prolog execution which is very compact, yet which contains complete details of unification and control history, including multiple (backtracking) invocations and extra-logical features such as the cut. The paper describes our fine-grained view of Prolog execution in detail, and argues that this fine-grained view can readily be integrated into a coarse-grained model such as thatrequired for understanding the execution of very large programs. Indeed, our notation is already in use across a range of media, including textbook diagrams, video animations, and a graphical tracing and debugging facility running on modem graphics workstations.     

PLC程序的设计方法

通过典型的逐步控制程序的编程实例,阐述逐步控制程序的运行过程,构建逐步运行程序的基本结构,总结逐步运行程序的基本设计方法。     

Principles for the design of dynamic tracing environments for novice programmers

This paper describes the principled design of a computational environment which depicts an animated story of the execution of programs for novice programmers. The design principles are aimed at solving the problems that novice programmers face when learning new programming languages, and are embodied in an Animated Program Tracer (APT) for Prolog. The goal of this research is to develop a more systematic, if not yet scientific, basis for the design of animated tracing tools.     

Active Learning through Modeling: Introduction to Software Development in the Business Curriculum*

Modern software practices call for the active involvement of business people in the software process. Therefore, programming has become an indispensable part of the information systems component of the core curriculum at business schools. In this paper, we present a model‐based approach to teaching introduction to programming to general business students. The theoretical underpinnings of the new approach are metaphor, abstraction, modeling, Bloom's classification of cognitive skills, and active learning. We employ models to introduce the basic programming constructs and their semantics. To this end, we use statecharts to model object's state and the environment model of evaluation as a virtual machine interpreting the programs written in JavaScript. The adoption of this approach helps learners build a sound mental model of the notion of computation process. Scholastic performance, student evaluations, our experiential observations, and a multiple regression statistical test prove that the proposed ideas improve the course significantly.     

A recursive techniques editor for Prolog

We describe an editor geared to recursive Prolog procedures. It is similar to the structure editors built for many programming languages, except that instead of just ensuring the correctness of the syntax of the procedures built by the editor, the editor also ensures the correct use of recursion. By correct here we mean that the recursive procedure is guaranteed to terminate and to be well-defined. Within these constraints we have tried to ensure that the range of procedures that can be built is as complete as possible.     

Teaching peer-tutoring behaviors in first- and third-grade classrooms

Peer tutoring programs represent an innovative approach for optimally utilizing resources existing within classrooms. While most tutoring programs have been aimed at helping tutees or tutors with academic difficulties, the present study involved all children in two classrooms in a peer tutoring project. A multiple baseline design indicated that prompting was effective in establishing tutoring behaviors among the children. By program end, all children were using corrective feedback, re-presenting questions, and employing contingent praise. Positive findings also were shown in academic, behavioral, and consumer satisfaction indices. In addition, 50% of children reported using peer-tutoring skills outside of the formal program.     

Prolog programming techniques

In this paper we introduce the concept of a Prolog programming technique. This concept is then distinguished both from that of an algorithm and that of a programming cliché. We give examples and show how a knowledge of them can be useful in both programming environments and in teaching programming skills. The extraction of the various techniques is outlined. Finally, we discuss the problem of representing techniques where we conclude that the most promising approach is the development of a suitable meta-language.     

Teaching and learning logic programming in virtual worlds using interactive microworld representations

Logic Programming (LP) follows the declarative programming paradigm, which novice students often find hard to grasp. The limited availability of visual teaching aids for LP can lead to low motivation for learning. In this paper, we present a platform for teaching and learning Prolog in Virtual Worlds, which enables the visual interpretation and verification of program results in a straightforward fashion and requires students to adopt a collaborative problem‐solving approach. The results of the pilot application and student‐centered evaluation of the platform are encouraging regarding group learning performance and user experience. The paper contributes to current practice of teaching and learning LP by proposing a metaphor and a system that can empower the educational process with toy world examples visualized in a shared 3D environment.     

Designing for metacognition—applying cognitive tutor principles to the tutoring of help seeking

Intelligent Tutoring Systems have been shown to be very effective in supporting learning in domains such as mathematics, physics, computer programming, etc. However, they are yet to achieve similar success in tutoring metacognition. While an increasing number of educational technology systems support productive metacognitive behavior within the scope of the system, few attempt to teach skills students need to become better future learners. To that end, we offer a set of empirically-based design principles for metacognitive tutoring. Our starting point is a set of design principles put forward by Anderson et al. (Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4:167–207, 1995) regarding Cognitive Tutors, a family of Intelligent Tutoring Systems. We evaluate the relevance of these principles to the tutoring of help-seeking skills, based on our ongoing empirical work with the Help Tutor. This auxiliary tutor agent is designed to help students learn to make effective use of the help facilities offered by a Cognitive Tutor. While most of Anderson’s principles are relevant to the tutoring of help seeking, a number of differences emerge as a result of the nature of metacognitive knowledge and of the need to combine metacognitive and domain-level tutoring. We compare our approach to other metacognitive tutoring systems, and, where appropriate, propose new guidelines to promote the discussion regarding the nature and design of metacognitive tutoring within scaffolded problem-solving environments.     

A prolog-based tool for French grammar analysis

In this article we look at some traditional approaches to the use of computers in the teaching of modern languages. Pointing out their inadequacies, we describe a system based around the use of a natural language parser for teaching French, known as frog. The role of Artificial Intelligence techniques in general and the benefits of using the programming language Prolog in particular for this task are described. We then present a system which is based around the use of such general techniques to cope with free form French sentences but which can be generalised as the basis of future work for a language-independent teaching shell.     

求解稳态系统优化与控制问题的递推二阶逼近法

本文提出一种递推二阶逼近方法。它利用修正的BFGS公式来构造实际目标函数的Hessian矩阵,通过解一个二阶近似优化问题——这个问题由修正的BFGS公式确定,来得到一个迭代搜索方向。为了获得一个新的迭代点并考虑到实际应用条件的差别,本文给出两种迭代更新策略:一个是牛顿步方法;另一个是一维搜索方法。在一些局部条件下,本文提出的方法具有R—超线性收敛的性质。本文将给出算法的全局收敛性条件和最优性条件,并给出算法收敛速率的估计。最后进行仿真研究,表明新算法的优越性。     

Peer and Cross-Age Tutoring in Math:Outcomes and Their Design Implications

This review of the literature on peer and cross-age tutoring emphasizes programs in mathematics and suggests that such programs have positive academic outcomes for African American and otherminority students as well as for White students who participate as tutors, as tutees, or both. Such programs also appear to have a positive impact on a variety of attitudinal and socioemotional outcomes, such as students' attitudes towards school, their self-concepts, and their sense of academic efficacy. This review also explores whether specific features of the tutoring programs (e.g., tutor training and amount of tutoring) or characteristics of the students (e.g., academic level prior to tutoring and gender composition of tutor-tutee pairs) affect various outcomes. Role theory is used as a theoretical framework to explain some intriguing and surprising findings (e.g., why tutors show academic gains even when they do not receive additional subject matter instruction, whylonger and/or more substantial tutoring programs may not foster greater immediate academic gains than shorter programs, and why mixed-sex pairs do not consistently reap benefits equal to those of same-sex pairs). Finally, implications of the review for the development of peer and cross-age tutoring programs are discussed.     

Multi-Attribute Utility Theory and Adaptive Techniques for Intelligent Web-based Educational Software

This paper describes how the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory can be combined with adaptive techniques to improve individualised teaching in an Intelligent Learning Environment (ILE). The ILE is called Web F-SMILE, it operates over the Web and is meant to help novice users learn basic skills of computer use. Tutoring is dynamically adapted to the individual learner based on the learner modelling component of the system and the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) that is employed to process the information about the user. As a result, MAUT provides a way for the system to select on the fly the best possible advice to be presented to users. Advice is dynamically formed based on adaptive presentation techniques, where adaptation is performed at the content level and adaptive navigation support, which is performed at the link level of the hyperspace of the tutoring system. The adaptivity of learning depends on factors such as the learner’s habits, prior knowledge and skills, which are used as criteria for the application of MAUT in the educational software. In this way, a novel combination of MAUT with adaptive techniques is used for intelligent web-based tutoring.     

应对策略培训:学生学习支持的新途径

成人在职学生通过网络接受远程教育时需要知识管理策略(knowledge management strategies),其中最核心的应对策略包括基本的资源库整理技能以及时间管理策略(技能)。应对策略的最佳教授方式主要是学生之间的相互辅导(peer-to-peer tutoring),虽然对于接受同学指导的学生而言,他们不能在学习上取得明显进步,但对于提供指导的学生而言,他们在以元认知的方式(meta-cognitively)进行自我辅导(self-tutoring)后,学习效果显著,学习成绩大幅提高。另外,高年级学生能够帮助低年级学生构建并运用个人知识管理体系,特别能在时间管理、信息搜寻与信息提取等方面提供指导。     

Investigating the role of computer‐supported annotation in problem‐solving‐based teaching: An empirical study of a Scratch programming pedagogy

For more than 2 years, Scratch programming has been taught in Taiwanese elementary schools. However, past studies have shown that it is difficult to find appropriate learning methods or tools to boost students’ Scratch programming performance. This inability to readily identify tutoring tools has become one of the primary challenges addressed in Scratch programming studies. To cope with this problem, we propose an innovative approach, which combines an Annotation‐based Scratch Programming (ASP) tool with the problem‐solving‐based teaching approach in Scratch programming pedagogy. The ASP tool was developed to enable students to create, review and share Scratch programming and homework annotations. In a quasi‐experimental study, we have evaluated Scratch programming pedagogy at a North Taiwanese elementary school to investigate the effects of instructional‐tools‐supported programming instructional modes on Scratch programming performance. The experimental results show that students who received ASP tool support in conjunction with a problem‐solving‐based teaching approach performed significantly better than the other groups. Based on our findings, the innovative approach was believed to play an important role in improving the learning patterns of younger pupils. Therefore, we suggest that teachers consider incorporating the innovative method into their teaching environments in order to boost students’ learning achievements in the area of Scratch programming and the subsequent learning process.     

Relative Effectiveness of Reading Intervention Programs for Adults with Low Literacy

To compare the efficacy of instructional programs for adult learners with basic reading skills below the seventh grade level, 300 adults were randomly assigned to one of three supplementary tutoring programs designed to strengthen decoding and fluency skills, and gains were examined for the 148 adult students who completed the program. The three intervention programs were based on or adapted from instructional programs that have been shown to benefit children with reading levels similar to those of the adult sample. Each program varied in its relative emphasis on basic decoding versus reading fluency instruction. A repeated measures MANOVA confirmed small to moderate reading gains from pre- to post-testing across a battery of targeted reading measures, but no significant relative differences across interventions. An additional 152 participants who failed to complete the intervention differed initially from those who persisted. Implications for future research and adult literacy instruction are discussed.