ISEDJ

Information Systems Education Journal

Volume 13

V13 N5 Pages 24-36

September 2015

Teaching Non-Beginner Programmers with App Inventor: Survey Results and Implications

Andrey Soares
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901, USA

Nancy L. Martin
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901, USA


Abstract: This paper reports the results of a survey with 40 students enrolled in an Android Application Development course offered during the spring semester of 2013 and 2014. The course used App Inventor to build the apps and required students to have an introduction to programming course as a prerequisite. The survey asked for demographic information and students’ opinions about prerequisites, App Inventor, previous programming skills, new concepts learned, teamwork, and more. The positive responses support the practice of using App Inventor to teach not only beginner programmers, but also more experienced programmers. The paper also shows that App Inventor can be used to support the teaching of more advanced computing concepts.

Keywords: App Inventor, Mobile applications, Non-Beginner programmer, survey

Download this article: ISEDJ - V13 N5 Page 24.pdf

Recommended Citation: Soares, A., Martin, N. L. (2015). Teaching Non-Beginner Programmers with App Inventor: Survey Results and Implications. Information Systems Education Journal, 13(5) pp 24-36. http://isedj.org/2015-13/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2014)