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Relating Spatial Skills and Expression Evaluation

Parkinson, J. , Cutts, Q. and Draper, S. (2020) Relating Spatial Skills and Expression Evaluation. In: UKICER '20: United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research Conference, Glasgow, UK, 03-04 Sep 2020, pp. 17-23. ISBN 9781450388498 (doi: 10.1145/3416465.3416473)

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Abstract

Work connecting spatial skills to computing has used course grades or marks, or general programming tests as the measure of computing ability. In order to map the relationship between spatial skills and computing more precisely, this paper picks out a particular subset of possible programming concepts and skills, that of expression evaluation. The paper describes the development of an expression evaluation test, which aims to identify participants' ability to perform evaluations of expressions across a range of complexity. The results indicate participants' expression evaluation ability was significantly correlated with a spatial skills test (r=0.48), even more so when only considering those with less prior programming experience (r=0.58). Thus, we have determined that spatial skills are of value in expression evaluation exercises, particularly for beginners.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Keywords:	Spatial skills, introductory computing, programming test, expression evaluation.
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:	Parkinson, Mr Jack and Draper, Dr Steve and Cutts, Professor Quintin
Authors:	Parkinson, J., Cutts, Q., and Draper, S.
College/School:	College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
Research Group:	CCSE
ISBN:	9781450388498
Copyright Holders:	Copyright © 2020 Association for Computing Machinery
Publisher Policy:	Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record

References

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Deposit and Record Details

ID Code:	223925
Depositing User:	Mr Jack Parkinson
Datestamp:	13 Oct 2020 10:00
Last Modified:	16 Sep 2022 10:28
Date of acceptance:	3 August 2020
Date of first online publication:	3 September 2020
Date Deposited:	14 October 2020