research-article

Open access

Neurodiverse Programmers and the Accessibility of Parsons Problems: An Exploratory Multiple-Case Study

Author:

Carl Haynes-MagyarAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Pages 491 - 497

https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630898

Published: 07 March 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Parsons problems are drag-and-drop computer programming puzzles that require learners to place code blocks in the correct order and sometimes indentation. Introductory computer programming instructors use them to teach novice programmers how to code while optimizing problem-solving efficiency and cognitive load. While there is research on the design of Parsons problems for programmers without disabilities and programmers with visual or motor impairments, research regarding their accessibility for programmers with cognitive disabilities is scant. To identify the accessibility barriers and benefits of Parsons problems for neurodiverse programmers, an exploratory multiple-case study was conducted. Participants were asked to read eight chapters of an interactive eBook on Python and to solve Parsons problems. Within-case analyses of 15 retrospective think-aloud interviews with five novice programmers with disabilities led to four recommendations for improving the cognitive accessibility of Parsons problems. For example, programmers with seizure disorders may experience seizures when solving programming problems that require numeric calculations. Hence, creating a range of Parsons problems that do not require mental arithmetic could improve the learning experience for programmers with seizure disorders and those who struggle with mental calculations by lowering their cognitive load. Given this study's qualitative and exploratory approach, it does not offer conclusive, broadly generalizable results. Yet, it reveals detailed and promising avenues for exploration in computing education research that might elude many quantitative techniques.

References

[1]

Rebecca Adams, Paul Finn, Elisabeth Moes, Kathleen Flannery, and Albert Skip Rizzo. 2009. Distractibility in Attention/Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): the virtual reality classroom. Child Neuropsychol, Vol. 15, 2 (March 2009), 120--135.

[2]

Anita L Archer and Charles A Hughes. 2010. Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. Guilford Publications.

[3]

Brianna Blaser and Richard E Ladner. 2020. Why is Data on Disability so Hard to Collect and Understand?. In 2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), Vol. 1. ieeexplore.ieee.org, 1--8.

[4]

R Brooks. 2011. Making the case for discipline-based assessment. Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime (2011).

[5]

Robert Chapman. 2020. Defining neurodiversity for research and practice. In Neurodiversity studies. Routledge, 218--220.

[6]

Ouhao Chen, Juan C Castro-Alonso, Fred Paas, and John Sweller. 2018. Undesirable Difficulty Effects in the Learning of High-Element Interactivity Materials. Front. Psychol., Vol. 9 (Aug. 2018), 1483.

[7]

Nick Cheng and Brian Harrington. 2017. The Code Mangler: Evaluating Coding Ability Without Writing any Code. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Seattle, Washington, USA) (SIGCSE '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 123--128.

Digital Library

[8]

Michelene T H Chi and Ruth Wylie. 2014. The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educ. Psychol., Vol. 49, 4 (Oct. 2014), 219--243.

[9]

Lynn Clouder, Mehmet Karakus, Alessia Cinotti, Mar'ia Virginia Ferreyra, Genoveva Amador Fierros, and Patricia Rojo. 2020. Neurodiversity in higher education: A narrative synthesis. Higher Education, Vol. 80, 4 (2020), 757--778.

[10]

Erica Cosijn and Peter Ingwersen. 2000. Dimensions of relevance. Inf. Process. Manag., Vol. 36, 4 (July 2000), 533--550.

Digital Library

[11]

Mayela Coto, Sonia Mora, Beatriz Grass, and Juan Murillo-Morera. 2022. Emotions and programming learning: systematic mapping. Computer Science Education, Vol. 32, 1 (Jan. 2022), 30--65.

[12]

Elaine Cristina Juvino De Araújo and Wilkerson L Andrade. 2021. A Systematic Literature Review on Teaching Programming to People with Cognitive Disabilities. In 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). ieeexplore.ieee.org, 1--8.

Digital Library

[13]

M Delazer, A Gasperi, L Bartha, E Trinka, and T Benke. 2004. Number processing in temporal lobe epilepsy. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, Vol. 75, 6 (June 2004), 901--903.

[14]

Paul Denny, Andrew Luxton-Reilly, and Beth Simon. 2008. Evaluating a new exam question: Parsons problems. In Proceedings of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research (Sydney, Australia) (ICER '08). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 113--124.

Digital Library

[15]

Md Ehtesham-Ul-Haque, Syed Mostofa Monsur, and Syed Masum Billah. 2022. Grid-Coding: An Accessible, Efficient, and Structured Coding Paradigm for Blind and Low-Vision Programmers. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (Bend, OR, USA) (UIST '22, Article 44). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--21.

Digital Library

[16]

Barbara J Ericson, Paul Denny, James Prather, Rodrigo Duran, Arto Hellas, Juho Leinonen, Craig S Miller, Briana B Morrison, Janice L Pearce, and Susan H Rodger. 2022. Parsons Problems and Beyond: Systematic Literature Review and Empirical Study Designs. In Proceedings of the 2022 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Dublin, Ireland) (ITiCSE-WGR '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 191--234.

Digital Library

[17]

Barbara J Ericson and Bradley N Miller. 2020. Runestone: A Platform for Free, On-line, and Interactive Ebooks. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Portland, OR, USA) (SIGCSE '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1012--1018.

Digital Library

[18]

Bent Flyvbjerg. 2006. Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qual. Inq., Vol. 12, 2 (April 2006), 219--245.

[19]

Flynn Fromont, Hiruna Jayamanne, and Paul Denny. 2023. Exploring the Difficulty of Faded Parsons Problems for Programming Education. In Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Computing Education Conference (Melbourne, VIC, Australia) (ACE '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 113--122.

Digital Library

[20]

Rita Garcia, Katrina Falkner, and Rebecca Vivian. 2018. Systematic literature review: Self-Regulated Learning strategies using e-learning tools for Computer Science. Comput. Educ., Vol. 123 (Aug. 2018), 150--163.

Digital Library

[21]

David Hammer and Leema K Berland. 2014. Confusing Claims for Data: A Critique of Common Practices for Presenting Qualitative Research on Learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 23, 1 (Jan. 2014), 37--46.

[22]

Kyle James Harms, Jason Chen, and Caitlin L Kelleher. 2016. Distractors in Parsons Problems Decrease Learning Efficiency for Young Novice Programmers. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (Melbourne, VIC, Australia) (ICER '16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 241--250.

Digital Library

[23]

Carl C Haynes and Barbara J Ericson. 2021. Problem-Solving Efficiency and Cognitive Load for Adaptive Parsons Problems vs. Writing the Equivalent Code. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI '21, Article 60). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--15.

Digital Library

[24]

Carl Haynes-Magyar and Barbara Ericson. 2022. The Impact of Solving Adaptive Parsons Problems with Common and Uncommon Solutions. In Proceedings of the 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli, Finland) (Koli Calling '22, Article 23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--14.

Digital Library

[25]

Edward Holden and Elissa Weeden. 2003. The impact of prior experience in an information technology programming course sequence. In Proceedings of the 4th conference on Information technology curriculum (Lafayette, Indiana, USA) (CITC4 '03). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 41--46.

Digital Library

[26]

Xinying Hou, Barbara Jane Ericson, and Xu Wang. 2022. Using Adaptive Parsons Problems to Scaffold Write-Code Problems. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 1 (Lugano and Virtual Event, Switzerland) (ICER '22, Vol. 1). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 15--26.

Digital Library

[27]

Xinying Hou, Barbara J Ericson, and Xu Wang. 2023. Understanding the Effects of Using Parsons Problems to Scaffold Code Writing for Students with Varying CS Self-Efficacy Levels. In Proceedings of the 23rd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli, Finland) (Koli Calling '23, Vol. 1). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--12.

Digital Library

[28]

Office of Special Education Programs Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 2021. U.S. Department of Education.

[29]

D H Ingvar and G E Nyman. 1962. Epilepsia arithmetices: A new psychologic trigger mechanism in a case of epilepsy. Neurology, Vol. 12, 4 (April 1962), 282--282.

[30]

Taina Kaivola and Heikki Lokki. 2010. Using concept mapping as a note taking tool in computer science. https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/27360/cmc2010_a27.pdf'sequence=2. Accessed: 2023--5--3.

[31]

Terhi K"arp"anen. 2021. A Literature Review on Cognitive Accessibility. Stud. Health Technol. Inform., Vol. 282 (June 2021), 259--270.

[32]

P"aivi Kinnunen and Beth Simon. 2012. My program is ok -- am I? Computing freshmen's experiences of doing programming assignments. Comput. Sci. Educ., Vol. 22, 1 (March 2012), 1--28.

[33]

Varsha Koushik and Shaun K Kane. 2019. “It Broadens My Mind”: Empowering People with Cognitive Disabilities through Computing Education. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Glasgow, Scotland Uk) (CHI '19, Paper 514). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--12.

[34]

Richard E Ladner and Maya Israel. 2016. “For all” in “computer science for all”. Commun. ACM, Vol. 59, 9 (Aug. 2016), 26--28.

Digital Library

[35]

Christopher Luchs. 2021. Considering Neurodiversity in Learning Design and Technology. TechTrends, Vol. 65, 6 (Nov. 2021), 923--924.

[36]

Kelly Mack, Emma McDonnell, Dhruv Jain, Lucy Lu Wang, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah Findlater. 2021. What Do We Mean by “Accessibility Research”? A Literature Survey of Accessibility Papers in CHI and ASSETS from 1994 to 2019. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI '21, Article 371). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--18.

Digital Library

[37]

I Scott MacKenzie. 2017. Fitts' Law. In The Wiley Handbook of Human Computer Interaction. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 347--370.

[38]

Sharan B Merriam. 1995 Issues of Validity and Reliability in. PAACE Journal of lifelong learning, Vol. 4 (1995), 51--60.

[39]

Lauren R Milne and Richard E Ladner. 2019. Position: Accessible Block-Based Programming: Why and How. In 2019 IEEE Blocks and Beyond Workshop (B&B). ieeexplore.ieee.org, 19--22.

[40]

Aboubakar Mountapmbeme and Stephanie Ludi. 2021. How Teachers of the Visually Impaired Compensate with the Absence of Accessible Block-Based Languages. In Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Virtual Event, USA) (ASSETS '21, Article 4). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--10.

Digital Library

[41]

Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, and Stephanie Ludi. 2022. Addressing Accessibility Barriers in Programming for People with Visual Impairments: A Literature Review. ACM Trans. Access. Comput., Vol. 15, 1 (March 2022), 1--26.

Digital Library

[42]

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Board on Science Education, Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, and Committee on How People Learn II: The Science and Practice of Learning. 2018. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures. National Academies Press.

[43]

Obianuju Okafor and Stephanie Ludi. 2022. Voice-Enabled Blockly: Usability Impressions of a Speech-driven Block-based Programming System. In Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Athens, Greece) (ASSETS '22, Article 64). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--5.

Digital Library

[44]

Stack Overflow. 2022. Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2022.

[45]

Parsons and Haden. 2006. Parson's programming puzzles: a fun and effective learning tool for first programming courses. of the 8th Australasian Conference on (2006).

[46]

Colin Pilkington and Helene Gelderblom. 2010. Using the Karplus learning cycle to teach learners with ADHD introductory computer programming. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, Vol. 14, 1 (Jan. 2010), 73--84.

[47]

Colin Reilly and Rebecca Ballantine. 2011. Epilepsy in school-aged children: more than just seizures? Support Learn., Vol. 26, 4 (Nov. 2011), 144--151.

[48]

Scott Michael Robertson. 2010. Neurodiversity, Quality of Life, and Autistic Adults: Shifting Research and Professional Focuses onto Real-Life Challenges. Disabil. Stud. Q., Vol. 30, 1 (2010).

[49]

Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Nick Chown, and Anna Stenning. 2020. Neurodiversity Studies: A New Critical Paradigm. Routledge.

[50]

Johnny Salda na. 2021. The coding manual for qualitative researchers. The coding manual for qualitative researchers (2021), 1--440.

[51]

Devin W Silvia, Marcos D Caballero, Thomas Finzell, Rachel Frisbie, Patti Hamerski, Emily Bolger, Sarah Castle, Rachel Roca, and Paige Tourangeau. 2023. Computing in Support of Disciplinary Learning. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 (Toronto ON, Canada) (SIGCSE 2023). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1247.

Digital Library

[52]

Judy Singer. 2017. Neurodiversity: The birth of an idea.

[53]

David H Smith, IV and Craig Zilles. 2023. Discovering, autogenerating, and evaluating distractors for python parsons problems in CS1. Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2023), March 18, 2023, Toronto, ON, Canada, Vol. 1, 1 (2023).

Digital Library

[54]

Melinda R Snodgrass, Maya Israel, and George C Reese. 2016. Instructional supports for students with disabilities in K-5 computing: Findings from a cross-case analysis. Comput. Educ., Vol. 100 (Sept. 2016), 1--17.

Digital Library

[55]

Elliot Soloway. 1986. Learning to program= learning to construct mechanisms and explanations. Commun. ACM, Vol. 29, 9 (1986), 850--858.

Digital Library

[56]

Andreas Stefik, Willliam Allee, Gabriel Contreras, Timothy Kluthe, Alex Hoffman, Brianna Blaser, and Richard Ladner. [n.,d.]. Accessible to Whom? Bringing Accessibility to Blocks. Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024), March 20ââ?¢ï¬ 23, 2024, Portland, OR, USA, Vol. 1, 1 ( [n.,d.]).

Digital Library

[57]

James E Swain, Lawrence Scahill, Paul J Lombroso, Robert A King, and James F Leckman. 2007. Tourette syndrome and tic disorders: a decade of progress. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, Vol. 46, 8 (Aug. 2007), 947--968.

[58]

J Gregory Trafton and Susan B Trickett. 2001. Note-Taking for Self-Explanation and Problem Solving. Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 16, 1 (March 2001), 1--38.

Digital Library

[59]

Candace Walkington and Matthew L Bernacki. 2019. Personalizing Algebra to Students' Individual Interests in an Intelligent Tutoring System: Moderators of Impact. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Vol. 29, 1 (March 2019), 58--88.

[60]

Nathaniel Weinman, Armando Fox, and Marti A Hearst. 2021. Improving Instruction of Programming Patterns with Faded Parsons Problems. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI '21, Article 53). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--4.

Digital Library

[61]

A J Wilkins, B Zifkin, F Andermann, and E McGovern. 1982. Seizures induced by thinking. Ann. Neurol., Vol. 11, 6 (June 1982), 608--612.

[62]

Robert K Yin. 2018. Case study research and applications. Sage.

[63]

Rui Zhi, Min Chi, Tiffany Barnes, and Thomas W Price. 2019. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Parsons Problems for Block-based Programming. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (Toronto ON, Canada) (ICER '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 51--59.

Digital Library

Cited By

Smith DPoulsen SEmeka CWu ZHaynes-Magyar CZilles C(2024)Distractors Make You Pay Attention: Investigating the Learning Outcomes of Including Distractor Blocks in Parsons ProblemsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671114(177-191)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671114

Index Terms

Neurodiverse Programmers and the Accessibility of Parsons Problems: An Exploratory Multiple-Case Study
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Accessibility
    1. Empirical studies in accessibility

Recommendations

From Awareness to Action: Teaching Software Accessibility for Neurodiverse Users
SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Neurodiversity affects about 15-20% of the population and neurodiverse users can struggle with software usability. However, there are few initiatives geared at educating about accessibility for neurodiversity. We begin conversation about this topic by ...
Parsons Problems and Beyond: Systematic Literature Review and Empirical Study Designs
ITiCSE-WGR '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Programming is a complex task that requires the development of many skills including knowledge of syntax, problem decomposition, algorithm development, and debugging. Code-writing activities are commonly used to help students develop these skills, but ...
Parsons Problems for Professional Learners
ITiCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 2

Parsons problems are well-regarded activities for scaffolding beginner programmers. We present a technique for employing Parsons problems in a cohort of professionals aiming to upskill in programming and data analytics. Recognising the distinct learning ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

March 2024

1583 pages

ISBN:9798400704239

DOI:10.1145/3626252

General Chairs:
Ben Stephenson
University of Calgary, Canada6000230660002306
,
Jeffrey A. Stone
Penn State University6000143960001439
,
Program Chairs:
Lina Battestilli
North Carolina State University, USA6000492360004923
,
Samuel A. Rebelsky
Grinnell College60028806
,
Libby Shoop
Macalester College60028787

Copyright © 2024 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

Sponsors

SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 March 2024

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

University of Michigan

Conference

SIGCSE 2024

Sponsor:

SIGCSE

SIGCSE 2024: The 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 20 - 23, 2024

OR, Portland, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

Upcoming Conference

SIGCSE TS 2025

Sponsor:
sigcse

The 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 26 - March 1, 2025

Pittsburgh , PA , USA

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

1
Total Citations
View Citations
433
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)433
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)52

Reflects downloads up to 06 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Smith DPoulsen SEmeka CWu ZHaynes-Magyar CZilles C(2024)Distractors Make You Pay Attention: Investigating the Learning Outcomes of Including Distractor Blocks in Parsons ProblemsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671114(177-191)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671114

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents