Fostering Problem Understanding as a Precursor to Problem-Solving in Computer Programming

In this research to practice full paper we quantified student understanding of computer programming problems, and correlated it with their ability to write viable computer programs. To quantify problem understanding, students were asked to generate adequate input/output combinations for the problem. About 45% of students demonstrated a complete understanding of the problem. The remaining students (55%) showed inconsistencies in their understanding of programming problems. After the problem understanding assessment, students were asked to solve the problems by writing computer programs using Python. About 88% of the students with complete understanding of a problem could solve it with a Python program. In contrast, the vast majority of students who did not completely understand the problem (67%) were not able to write working computer programs. Surprisingly, ~ 33% of students with partial understanding of problems were able to write viable computer programs. We conclude that the challenges to write viable Python computer programs start with the failure to understand the problem. Helping students develop strategies to understand a problem correctly may help them writing viable computer programs that solve the problem.