@inproceedings{25d0e9f1b45044eda217299487b4327f,
title = "Identifying student difficulties with basic data structures",
abstract = "To be effective instructors and CS education researchers, we must identify and understand student difficulties surrounding core computing topics. This study examines student difficulties with the basic data structures commonly found in CS2 courses. Initial exploration of student thinking began with think-aloud interviews with students. These interviews centered on open-ended questions that were iteratively improved upon based on analysis of interview transcripts. The revised open-ended questions were then posed to 249 students during an end-of-term final exam study session. Using the explanations and justifications included by students, responses to the questions were coded and summarized. This work characterizes the difficulties revealed by student responses, and provides details of their prevalence among the examined student population.",
keywords = "CS2, Data structures, Difficulties",
author = "Daniel Zingaro and Cynthia Taylor and Leo Porter and Michael Clancy and Cynthia Lee and Liao, {Soohyun Nam} and Webb, {Kevin C.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following collaborators: Meghan Allen, Owen Astrachan, Darci Burdge, Stephanie Chasteen, Maureen Doyle, John Glick, Paul Hilfinger, Kate Sanders, Paramsothy Thananjeyan, and Steve Wolfman. This work was supported in part by NSF award 1505001. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.; 14th Annual International Computing Education Research Conference, ICER 2018 ; Conference date: 13-08-2018 Through 15-08-2018",
year = "2018",
month = aug,
day = "8",
doi = "10.1145/3230977.3231005",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781450356282",
series = "ICER 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",
pages = "169--177",
booktitle = "ICER 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research",
}