Metacognitive theories of visual programming: what do we think we are doing?

The research involved a qualitative and quantitative study of statements made by computer scientists about the ways in which they think that visual programming assists the thought processes of the programmer. This type of metacognitive knowledge has been shown in psychological experiments to have significant effects on performance in cognitive tasks. It is particularly important in the design of programming environments, where HCI factors of the environment constrain the programmer's design behaviour according to the beliefs of the environment designer. The metacognitive knowledge expressed in the visual programming literature is categorised in the paper into a range of micro-theories, the frequency of statements found in each category are compared, and the theoretical assumptions are evaluated in terms of relevant research in cognitive psychology.