Papers and Journals

Human Technology

The online journal "Human Technology" has just published a special issue containing last year's best PPIG papers.

The papers were selected based on the original PPIG reviews; after the workshop, the selected papers were re-reviewed and improved for publication in the journal. The special issue contains the following five papers:

• Stephan Salinger, Laura Plonka, and Lutz Prechelt: A Coding Scheme Development Methodology Using Grounded Theory For Qualitative Analysis of Pair Programming Rozilawati Razali
• Colin Snook, Michael Poppleton, and Paul Garratt: Usability Assessment of a UML-Based Formal Modeling Method Using a Cognitive Dimensions Framework
• Sue Jones and Gary Burnett: Spatial Ability and Learning to Program
• Juha Sorva: A Roles-Based Approach to Variable-Oriented Programming
• Jorma Sajaniemi and Marja Kuittinen: From Procedures to Objects: A Research Agenda for the Psychology of Object-Oriented Programming Education

The special issue is freely available

Programming as mathematical narrative

by Yishay Mor and Richard Noss

Published in the International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 2008 - Vol. 18, No.2 pp. 214-233, this paper describes a narrative-oriented approach to the design and the analysis of a computational system and a set of activities for mathematical learning.

Our central contention is that programming can offer a key to resolving the tension between the different representational structures of narrative and mathematical formalism. In the course of describing our approach, we make a distinction between the epistemic-cognitive elements of narrative and the social, cultural and affective elements. We then elaborate the theoretical grounds of the individual epistemic facets of narrative.

We propose a link between narrative theories of learning and constructionist traditions, specifically the notion of situated abstraction. This link suggests the possibility of further dialogue between the two academic communities.

A preprint is available for download.

A full abstract is available from the publishers website.