Cognitive characteristics of learning Java, an object-oriented programming language

Abstract

Industry and Academia are moving from procedural programming languages
(e.g., COBOL) to object-oriented programming languages, such as Java for
the Internet. Past studies in the cognitive aspects of programming have
focused primarily on procedural programming languages. Some of the
languages used have been Pascal, C, Basic, FORTAN, and COBOL.
Object-oriented programming (OOP) represents a new paradigm for
computing. Industry is finding that programmers are having difficulty
shifting to this new programming paradigm. This instruction in OOP is
currently starting in colleges and universities across the country. What
are the cognitive aspects for this new OOP language Java? When is a
student developmentally ready to handle the cognitive characteristics of
the OOP language Java? Which cognitive teaching style is best for this
OOP language Java? Questions such as the aforementioned are the focus of
this research Such research is needed to improve understanding of the
learning process and identify students' difficulties with OOP methods.
This can enhance academic teaching and industry training (Scholtz, 1993;
Sheetz, 1997; Rosson, 1990). Cognitive development as measured by the
Propositional Logic Test, cognitive style as measured by the Hemispheric
Mode Indicator, and physical hemispheric dominance as measured by a
self-report survey were obtained from thirty-six university students
studying Java programming. Findings reveal that physical hemispheric
dominance is unrelated to cognitive and programming language variables.
However, both procedural and object oriented programming require
Piaget's formal operation cognitive level as indicated by the
Propositional Logic Test. This is consistent with prior research A new
finding is that object oriented programming also requires formal
operation cognitive level. Another new finding is that object oriented
programming appears to be unrelated to hemispheric cognitive style as
indicated by the Hemispheric Mode Indicator (HMI). This research
suggests that object oriented programming is hemispheric thinking style
friendly, while procedural programming is left hemispheric cognitive
style. The conclusion is that cognitive characteristics are not the
cause for the difficulty in shifting from procedural to this new
programming paradigm of object oriented programming. An alternative
possibility to the difficulty is proactive interference. Prior learning
of procedural programming makes it harder to learning object oriented
programming. Further research is needed to determine if proactive
interference is the cause for the difficulty in shifting from procedural
programming to object oriented programming.