Novice difficulties in selection structure

Novices usually have difficulties in learning introductory programming. The purpose of this paper is to identify the common errors made by these students in the first seven weeks of their studies. Artifact used to extract data is their first progress test after completing the first seven-week in the semester. This paper will investigate the common errors done by novice programmers when interpreting assignment statement, arithmetic expression, output statement, program design, code comprehension and program generation. This paper will answer the following questions; what are the common errors and their categories according to the programming skills learnt? It was found that most common errors in evaluating arithmetic expression are failed to evaluate integer division and type conversion. Operator precedence error could not be detected in most questions, however one question shows a higher frequency. In code comprehension question, most students did not evaluate output statement, arithmetic expression and relational expression correctly. When generating a code segment, students failed to name variables correctly and assign suitable data types and structure. The most obvious error in problem analysis and design are failed to create mathematical expression.