Identifying and addressing common programming misconceptions with variables (part 1)

Programming is considered an important skill in the 21st century, but it is not an easy skill to teach or to learn. One of the most basic concepts in programming is that of variables. Investigation into this concept reveals a wide range of misconceptions students may hold, mostly originating from previous experiences with math, human interaction, and the often-used container analogy. In order to help both students and teachers, we developed an overview of misconceptions around variables, a test to help identify these misconceptions, and an interactive video intervention to help transform them into the correct way of thinking about variables. The effectiveness of the intervention has been evaluated with secondary education and applied university students.