Teaching Object-Oriented Thinking to Novice Programmers Using the Agentsheets Environment

Abstract

Java and Visual Basic are the most commonly used programming languages in teaching programming to beginners. The advantage is that students use currently dominant programming tools in the market. However novice programmers have problems of comprehension, at least this is reported by the relevant research, and this is due to the complexity of the professional programming development environments for Java and Visual Basic. Moreover, modern programming models, like the object-oriented scheme, are posing a series of additional intellectual obstacles to beginners. Many researchers have suggested special environments for dealing with those problems, specifically designed for introductory teaching. In the present article, the AgentSheets programming environment is proposed for an introduction in object-oriented programming. The AgentSheets environment can have a positive effect in developing the object-oriented thinking for novice programmers. Visual and tactual embedded features, as well as interactivity and feedback capabilities in all development and execution phases, in addition to rapid example implementation are able to successfully interact in the improvement of algorithmic rationale and object-oriented thinking. Therefore, AgentSheets introduces a wide range of educational uses.