Programming assistance tools to support the learning of IT programming in South African secondary schools

• Investigation of software to support novice programming in South African schools.
• Selection criteria for programming assistance tools (PATs) were derived.
• PATs were selected for use and evaluation by participating scholars.
• PATs did not have a significant impact on understanding of programming concepts.
• PATs need to support the programming concepts and syntax being taught to scholars.

Novice programmers struggle to understand introductory programming concepts and this difficulty, associated with learning to program, contributes mainly to the lack of interest in the field of Computer Science at tertiary level. Programming assistance tools have been used to assist novice programmers extensively at education institutions. A programming assistance tool (PAT) is a software program that can be used by novice programmers to learn how to program and/or improve their understanding of programming concepts.This research proposes that novice programmers, specifically Information Technology (IT) scholars in South African secondary schools, could be supported by PATs. The main objective of this research was to determine whether the use of a PAT impacted IT scholars' understanding of programming concepts and their motivation towards programming in general. Criteria for the selection of PATs were derived from the programming difficulties identified in literature and from surveys to IT teachers and scholars. The selection criteria were grouped into programming knowledge and programming skills categories. Existing PATs were evaluated using the selection criteria and three PATs, namely, RoboMind, Scratch and B#, were selected for evaluation in this research study. A convenience sample of schools participated in the study. The three PATs provided different approaches while being able to support the Delphi programming language used in schools that participated in the study.The findings of this research indicated that, although scholars perceived the PATs to be useful in the explanation of certain of the programming concepts, there was no conclusive evidence that IT scholars who used a PAT had a significantly better understanding of programming concepts and motivation towards programming than scholars who did not use a PAT. Participant feedback was used to identify the strengths and shortcomings of the three PATs and to provide recommendations for the development of future PATs specifically designed to support IT scholars.