The role of self-regulation in programming problem solving process and success

Abstract

While prior work has investigated many aspects of programming problem solving, the role of self-regulation in problem solving success has received little attention. In this paper we contribute a framework for reasoning about self-regulation in programming problem solving. We then use this framework to investigate how 37 novice programmers of varying experience used self-regulation during a sequence of programming problems. We analyzed the extent to which novices engaged in five kinds of self-regulation during their problem solving, how this self-regulation varied between students enrolled in CS1 and CS2, and how self-regulation played a role in structuring problem solving. We then investigated the relationship between self-regulation and programming errors. Our results indicate that while most novices engage in selfregulation to navigate and inform their problem solving efforts, these self-regulation efforts are only effective when accompanied by programming knowledge adequate to succeed at solving a given problem, and only some types of self-regulation appeared related to errors. We discuss the implications of these findings on problem solving pedagogy in computing education.