The Perform approach aims to improve the success rate of weak students in a first programming course. The approach, based on constructivism, takes a tight control on the mental model construction process in the weak students, and allows the students to navigate through many conceptual pitfalls in programming fundamentals. The paper covers a discussion of applying constructivism in programming, exposes common hazards in the learning process, illustrates why weak students are weak, and then suggests several guidelines that can help the weak students to attain at least foundation level programming. The paper ends with a summary of our experiences in the effect of the Perform approach.
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Lui et al. (2004) studied this question.
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