How the nature of programming and learning materials affects novice learner's motivation and programming ability

Abstract

Students who are learning new knowledge in a certain area is known as novice learners. Many novice learners faced difficulties in learning new things especially for those who are not majoring in that particular area for example non-computing students who face difficulties in learning C programming. This descriptive study attempted to analyse the relationships between factors; the nature of programming and learning materials that might have potential to affect the students' motivation and ability. A set of questionnaire consist of 47 items were distributed to 250 respondents. Pearson's correlation and Spearman's rank coefficient test was carried out to determine the relationship among the factors. The findings revealed that there are positive relationships between the variables. Therefore, this study believes by delivering programming nature to students in a better way and provide relevant materials could help students increase their motivation and problem solving ability in C programming.