Recently, the importance of computer programming education for improving the power of thinking and problem-solving is increasing. However, students usually have many difficulties in computer programming and the difficulties are not easily solved becau...
Recently, the importance of computer programming education for improving the power of thinking and problem-solving is increasing. However, students usually have many difficulties in computer programming and the difficulties are not easily solved because computer programming needs various knowledge and techniques.
This thesis analyzes the content of Visual Basic textbooks which have been used for the beginners in high school and university. Firstly, we classified the beginners' difficulties of programming into five parts, which were extracted from some related research results. Those are concept, grammar, coding and execution, debugging and the others. Then we made a checklist for evaluating the textbooks. Finally, we refined the checklist with the help of the experts who have teaching experience in computer programming.
The analysis result shows that most parts of the textbooks are designed as the form of a technical book for a specific programming language rather than the form of an instructional material for improving fundamental programming skills. It means that the textbooks are inadequate for the beginners. Selecting or developing a textbook is very important step in education. Therefore, it is necessary to present an improved model of the textbook which is effective in teaching and learning for the beginners of computer programming.