Teaching programming concepts to high school students with Alice

A quasi-experiment was conducted in this research to investigate the feasibility of using Alice in teaching high school students programming concepts. The subjects were 166 10th-grade students from four intact classes. Alice was taught to two randomly selected classes, and the other two classes were taught C++, both for 8 weeks. The programming constructs students learned included variables, arithmetic expressions, selection structures, repetition structures and built-in functions. An analysis of students´ test scores revealed that the Alice group performed significantly better than the C++ group, indicating that Alice seemed to be more effective in facilitating students´ comprehension of fundamental programming concepts. Results of questionnaire surveys did not show any significant difference between the two groups in students´ motivation toward learning computer programming or their overall learning experience, suggesting that the participating students seemed to have received the two languages equally well.