REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of the related literatures and studies regarding

topic about Difficulties encountered in C++programming language as perceived by

sophomore students of Laguna University. At the outset of this study, the researchers

are engaged in gathering information related to the research studies and literatures that

have bearing and significance to the study.

Foreign Literature

On the difficulty of learning to program, (Tony Jenkins 2002) said that “It is

sometimes argued that the students who nd programming di​ffi​cult are simply those for

whom programming is di​ffi​cult”. He also stated that there is nothing inherently difficult in

the subject; the argument is simply that some students have no aptitude for

programming. The required skills often cited are problem solving ability and

mathematical ability.

It is the foregoing connection that he also stressed that the link between

mathematical ability and programming is widely accepted, although its empirical

demonstration is questionable. In addition, there is little evidence that either has any

signicant e​ff​ect. A recent study in Ireland (Pat Byrne and Gerry Lyons, 2001) has once

hinted at some connection between programming aptitude and experience in

mathematics and problem solving. Along with it, an experiment at the University of

Leeds (John Davy and Tony Jenkins, 1999) designed to stream a programming class

based on the results of an aptitude test aimed at these two skills but the nal results of
the course showed no signicant correlation between the calculated aptitude and the

nal grade. Other studies (General E. Evans and Mark G. Simkin, 1989) have shown

that no demographic factor is a strong predictor of success in programming.

Moreover, Dianne Hagan and Selby Markham (2000) said that it certainly helps

to have some experience of programming before starting a programming course but this

is not the same thing as aptitude. There exists programming aptitude tests (PAT)

produced by IBM, but the evidence for their effectiveness is inconclusive at best

(Lawrence J. Mazlack, 1980). If it is not possible to measure aptitude for programming

in some convenient way, and if it is possible that "aptitude" for programming does not

even exist, the focus for the understanding the difficulty of learning to program must turn

in a more cognitive view of the problem lies in the subject itself (T. Jenkins, 2002).

According to Kathryn D. Sloane and Marcia C. Linn (1988), programming, then,

is not a single skill. It is also not a simple set of skills; the skills form a hierarchy, and a

programmer will be using many of them at any point in time. As cited by C. Bereiter and

E. Ng (1991), a student faced with learning a hierarchy of skills will generally learn the

lower level skills first, and will then progress upwards. In the case of coding (one small

part of the skill of programming) this implies that students will learn the basics of syntax

first and then gradually move on to semantics, structure, and finally style. Teachers will

be all too familiar with the student who produces programs with no indentation,

intending to "indent it all later", or without any comments, content to add these later (and

only then because there are marks for the comments in the assessment). Further, (Tony

Jenkins, 2001) stressed that no experienced programmer would work in this way, and
these are bad habits to fall into, but this is an inevitable side effect of the order in which

programming skills are learned. This approach to learning is often reinforced by lectures

that concentrate on the details of syntax, and by textbooks that adopt much the same

approach. This leads to the student who hopes to gain an understanding of

programming and plans to achieve this by reading a textbook. Programming is learned

by programming, not from books.

In sustenance to the foregoing, (McKeithen Katherine et.al, 1981) alleged that

programming is not only more than a single skill; it also involves more than one distinct

process. At the simplest level the specification must be translated into an algorithm,

which is then translated into program code. In experienced programmers it is also

possible to identify an intermediate process whereby the algorithm is mapped to

something resembling a "recipe" for the programme, based on previous experience

Meanwhile, Tony Jenkins (2001) cited that the most difficult part of multiple

process of Programming is first, translating the specification into the algorithm. This is

also the most important, as it is crucial that a correct and efficient algorithm is used as

the basis of any coding. Given a correct algorithm the other processes are essentially

mechanical. Therefore, a student must master three distinct processes. He also

mentioned that teaching and learning, however, can concentrate on the low level issues

of syntax at the expense of the higher level, more complex, and process of designing an

algorithm. Worse, any consideration of algorithm design and efficiency can be

relegated to another, apparently unrelated, part of the course. In any case there is

surely little point in lecturing students on syntax when they have no idea of where and
how to apply it. Teachers will be familiar with students who can follow the lectures in the

programming course, who can dissect and understand programs, but who are totally

incapable of writing their own program. They have not mastered all the processes; they

can code, but they cannot produce an algorithm.

Local Literature

An article published on WebGeek.ph shows an interview with Tim Joseph Dumol,

chief Hacker of Kalibrr. Tim is an active competitor in programming contests, such as

ACM ICPC Philippine Invitational Programming Contest (1st), ACM ICPC Jakarta

Regionals 2012 (9th) Google Code Jam 2011 (Rank 786 of Round 2) and Manila Dev

Challenge (Best Performance in the preliminaries).

In the interview, he was asked about his view on Philippine tech and its potential,

he said that there might be more talent shortage in the upcoming years, “I don't think

software development is visible enough in the public consciousness to attract top talent

towards it. I also think that programming and computer science education in the

Philippines is severely lacking. I've heard of several schools that teach MS Word,

PowerPoint, and Photoshop for their computer classes, which misleads potential

computer scientists as to what computer science actually is.” He’s last statement to the

question was “I think without proper training on the foundations of computer science,

future programmers will be ill prepared to face novel problems and to truly excel in their

fields”.
 Along with it, an article was written by fydesign, a web design company focused

on web development of corporate websites, e-commerce and search engine

optimization, about the quality of Filipino programmers that applied for a job in their

company. The articles shows that only 5 out of the 81 applicants have answered a

problem in the interview correctly and none of those 5 were able to answer it efficiently.

The skill evaluation consists of two simple exams: Variable Swapping to test your

resourcefulness and Shuffling to test the applicant’s coding efficiency.

Due to the result of the interview, the interviewer or writer of the articles narrowed

the three problems, the first one was the Misconception on Experience. They say that

experience isn’t much of a factor since It’s with an average of 7 years’ experience can’t

answer the two questions. It is stated in the article that if a person will “Give a month to

a new graduate with an outstanding knowledge in programming concepts,

problem-solving or logic formulation skills and he can even exceed your average 7-year

experienced programmer.” The misconception on the years of experience is one factor

the programmer slows down or even stops learning.

The second problem was in the low quality of education. A big factor in the

worsening quality of programmers is the institution. IT Schools focus more on teaching

specific programming languages and programming syntax instead of programming

concepts. The author stated the learning the concept is more important that hand’s on

experience. The last one was the lack of passion, “It all starts within you (programmer).

In the first place, why take the Computer Science Course if all they want is design,

photography, nursing, agriculture, housewife, etc. They will never succeed, and they will
never look for opportunities to improve. This is normally the behaviour if what they do is

not something that you really love.”