Analysis of spreadsheet errors made by computer literacy students

Spreadsheets have become a routine application in most organizations and universities. As a consequence, students are required to learn spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel. The learning of spreadsheets is often accompanied by problems related to spreadsheet application and their mathematical content. The EXITS (Excel intelligent tutoring system) research project aims to develop a Microsoft Excel tutor that help students or learners to overcome their learning difficulties. In this paper, we analyse and classify spreadsheet errors made by students in order to determine the function that our system should perform and to generate an error library for student modelling purposes.