Work in progress - students´ misconceptions about state in digital systems

In introductory undergraduate courses on digital systems, students have difficulty understanding the state concept. We expect that students have subtle, persistent misconceptions about state because it is an abstract concept and has nuanced meanings in different disciplines as well as colloquial English. To learn how students conceive of state in digital logic, we interviewed undergraduates in computer engineering or computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who had just completed a first course in digital logic. In the one-hour interviews, students talked about their thoughts as they solved digital logic problems. These interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using qualitative methods.