I had a thought -- I don't know if it'll actually add anything to the
discussion, but:
Consider for a moment if we could identify the cognitive requirements
of a profession, the cognitive abilities of candidates, and could
simply cross-check between them to see if candidate X could achieve
proficiency in profession Y.
Consider also the question "how would we tell if this was working?"
It turns out that (to an extent) this is roughly what the Queensland
tertiary entrance system claims to do:
Students are not admitted to university courses by interview (that
could introduce problems of prejudice) but by a statistical and
mathematical process. An "OP" and a number of "FP"s are calculated
for each student. These are rankings from 1-25; adjusted via a
number of means to cater for issues like "maybe only bright students
take physics" and "maybe he had better teachers". The OP is the
overall position, and the FPs are positions in a number of skill
areas. To be accepted onto a university course, you simply have to
meet its OP and FP requirements, which are determined by the faculty
(though demand does play a part).
As for the second question: whether it works -- do the students
cope. Academically, I don't know, but I can point you at the
Queensland Journal of Education Research, who have presumably been
busily studying just that sort of thing for the last 20 years. I'd
hope you can find papers analysing the failure rates of students on
university courses and comparing that with what the OP/FP system
predicted, etc, to see if there are certain kinds of course where
it's harder to predict the outcome.
Anecdotally, however, I'll mention this. Engineering had a common
first year across civil, chemical, mechanical, electrical, etc -- so
there wasn't much programming in first year. Despite this, of the
students who dropped out, the vast majority dropped out in first year
-- not many at all dropped out all in second year where the
programming content rose as students specialised into electrical and
computer engineering. This suggests to me that the barrier was not
that programming is a "different kettle of fish", but that most
students dropped out because of the same effects of moving away from
home for the first time (not being forced to work, meeting girl-/
boyfriends, availability of drugs, etc) as for any other subject.
regards,
Will Billingsley
On 3 Jul 2007, at 18:24, Charles Knutson wrote:
I'm not convinced that absolutely *anyone* can learn to be a
professional X (whatever X is). I think there are some who are
really just wired to do other things. But I am confident that there
are varying degrees to which inherent aptitude plays a role, and
similarly varying degrees to which effective learning experiences
contribute to facilitate those individuals who can, in fact, be
successful at profession X.
As evidence, I offer the following non-empirical anecdote. I
started programming in 1973, when I was 13 years old. Our high
school had a timesharing account on a mainframe at the University
of Northern Iowa, and a DecWriter with a suction cup modem and a
rotary phone with a dedicated line to the university. About a half
dozen of us math geeks gathered daily in a room to play with the
computer (which largely consisted of playing Dungeons and Dragons
and Star Trek, with intermittent fits of attempted software design
and code construction). Several of my friends just seemed to have
the knack right out of the chute. We'd dumpster dive at the
university for discarded manuals, and that was all Brian and Doug
needed to build software. I tried desperately but couldn't get it
beyond a fundamental level. The other guys were more or less like
me, in love with the technology, but not fluent with the incantations.
Years later, in my second semester at the University of Iowa, I had
a really well constructed and well presented Computer Science class
that focused primarily on design. During that semester, the light
came on, and I got it! From that semester it was simply a matter of
learning new skills and piling them onto the foundation I had now
acquired. I had a very successful professional career building
software (HP, Novell, various small companies and consulting gigs),
picked a few graduate degrees along the way, and then retired to
the university to stop producing and begin pontificating. :)
As an epilogue, of the group of math geeks that gathered together
daily in high school to play with the DecWriter, all but one of us
acquired degrees in Computer Science, with the other one (Brian)
doing Electrical Engineering.
My personal experience is that I was always fascinated, I was
obviously capable, but I needed someone to throw the switch for me
to understand how to become self-sustaining after that. I believe
there is a taxonomy of four types of people, relative to
professional software construction: 1) Those born to code, who need
almost no coaching; 2) Those born capable but in need of training
in order to be successful; 3) Those not really born to it, but who
can be trained sufficiently to make a living; 4) Those whose brains
are really not wired to build software at all.
Just my two cents. Your mileage may vary.
Chuck
--------------------------------------------------------------
Charles D. Knutson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.
Brigham Young University
www.charlesknutson.net
On Jul 3, 2007, at 6:18 AM, Nick Flor wrote:
Ah, brings back memories.
The concepts you're referring to are "neural plasticity" and
"critical periods." The studies I'm familiar with focus on
learning (human) languages. Supposedly, past a certain age you
can learn a language, but you'll never pick up all the little
nuances that the natives have.
For the record, I believe anyone can learn to program at a
professional level. The question is, are they willing to put in
the time to acquire all the chunks needed to be an expert?
Unfortunately, we can't force our students to put in the time.
Just my opinion,
- Nick
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of ok
Sent: Mon 7/2/2007 10:01 PM
To: discuss@ppig.org
Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: Programmer education argument-starter
of the week
On 3 Jul 2007, at 3:20 am, Lindsay Marshall wrote:
So I would be, frankly, astonished if it could be shown that
*everyone* is equally trainable in programming to a
professional standard, any more than it could be shown that
everyone could learn to be a professional golfer or a
professional artist or a professional mathematician or a
professional teacher.
Actually I think that most people could be trained to these
levels or
pretty close to them with sufficient effort.
...
The neurologist made the point that some things take a LOT of
practice
and if you start too late you will NEVER be much good at it. You
cannot
expect a professional baseballer to also play tennis to professional
level (although he would of course beat a rabbit like me every time).
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