Fluid Intelligence and Mental Effort during Block Programming: What the Eyes Can Tell Us

Programming skills are becoming increasingly important in our digital age. Here, block-based programming languages offer a great way for novices to learn programming, as their drag-and-drop mechanic makes the assembly of code very intuitive. In this study we wanted to answer the question whether fluid intelligence helps with learning to program and what influence it has on the amount of effort needed to succeed in block-programming tasks. We used eye tracking to look into physiological measures of mental effort, focusing on pupil diameter, fixation characteristics, and blinks. Our results suggest that the mental effort needed to successfully complete block-programming tasks is not linked to fluid intelligence and all learners have to invest similar amounts of effort in order to succeed. Additionally, we found that high fluid intelligence speeds up the completion of basic block-programming tasks, but does not influence the time it takes to solve more complex block-programming tasks.