Subgoals, Context, and Worked Examples in Learning Computing Problem Solving

Sessions of 15-30 participants each; total not confirmed

Introductory computing learners in a laboratory study.

A lab experiment comparing given against self-generated subgoal labels on an introductory programming task. Session-based, researcher-designed materials and outcomes, one to two hours of exposure, small. Read at secondary depth via the later papers in the same programme.

Set up to test whether generating subgoal labels beats being given them. The finding that matters for the archive is the negative one: the given-labels effect that works in mathematics and science DID NOT replicate as expected in the introductory CS task. The subgoal literature's own foundational paper contains a domain-specific failure that the later positive papers rarely foreground.

Low. Lab experiment with random assignment to condition.

This IS the non-replication. A well-established instructional effect from mathematics and science did not transfer to introductory programming in the lab that went on to build the CS subgoal literature.