Program learning for beginners: Survey and taxonomy of programming learning tools

Abstract

Occasionally a game or visual programming language tool designed for programming education is used to teach programming. In general, these tools have various attributes, which inhibit a great learning effect if the tool and learning objectives are not aligned. However, which tool is most appropriate for a given objective remains unknown. In this research, we propose a taxonomy table to evaluate program learning tools and demonstrate its usefulness by researching and comparing 43 kinds of program learning tools in the taxonomy table. This research should contribute to the selection of suitable tools for program learning.