Investigating the Role of Explanative Diagrams as a Representation of Notional Machine on a Novice Programmer’s Mental Model

Novice programmers often make haphazard mistakes due to their incomplete and inconsistent mental models. Previous studies have indicated that students have a non-viable mental model of fundamental programming concepts. From theories of mental model, Mayer [13] showed the effectiveness of explanative diagrams in shaping a novice’s mental model. My dissertation aims to evaluate the role of Mayer’s explanative diagram as a representation of a notional machine to shape novice programmers’ mental models of the array.