Is there some meaningful percentage of students who can't learn to program?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

A few days ago, I had a high school sophomore (who is now in her third CS class, having passed the prior two) look at this Java code for a solid 3-5 minutes, and was unable to figure out what it did:

int answer = -1;
while (answer < 1 || answer > 5){
    System.out.println("Please enter a number from 1 to 5.");
    answer = myScanner.nextInt();
}

She couldn't identify the ending condition of the loop, and didn't understand why answer was initially set to a number outside of the 1-5 range. The understandings that she would need to comprehend this code was covered in a prior class by a different teacher, and it was covered a second time from first principles in mine.

I don't particularly need help with this student. I will tutor her and give her extra worksheets. She will almost certainly skirt by and do okay, but if the past is a good indicator, she might never be able to quite put it all together, and larger projects will be impossible for her without some outside help (which I will make sure that she receives).

However, every year, I find a small number of students who just don't seem to get it. They muddle through, but the CS major program becomes harder and harder for them as their four years go by.Must it be this way?

Is there any evidence or reason to believe that there are students who genuinely can't learn to program? Or, flipping the question around, is there any evidence or reason to believe that every student really can learn to program?