INFORMATICS IN EDUCATION
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INFORMATICS IN EDUCATION, 2008, Vol. 7, No. 2, 159-172
© Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,

ISSN 1648-5831

Object-Oriented Programming in Bulgarian Universities' Informatics and Computer Science Curricula

Ivaylo DONCHEV, Emilia TODOROVA

Department of Information Technologies, Veliko Tarnovo University G. Kozarev str. 3, 5000 Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria E-mail: i.donchev@abv.bg, emilia_todorova@yahoo.co.uk

Abstract

Teaching object-oriented programming (OOP) is related to many difficulties. There is no single view on their causes among the university teachers. The results of applying various methods of teaching - with early or late introduction of the objects, are controversial too.

This work presents the results of a study designed to analyze and classify the difficulties encountered in the teaching of OOP in Bulgarian universities as well as the possibilities for dealing with them. Two viewpoints have been considered - of lecturers and of students. The issues under consideration are: when and what should be studied, what should be stressed, what languages and environments should be used, what examples are the most suitable, and what educational goals the programming courses should achieve.

Our investigation was aimed also to confirm or cast aside our suppositions that important aspects in teaching/learning OOP are being underestimated: great attention is being paid to the data in a class at the expence of the behavior of the objects in a program; more than necessary is being stressed onto the syntactic peculiarities in defining classes and objects without detailed clarification why they are needed; the auxiliary didactic tools that are being used are insufficient.

Keywords:

object-oriented programming, OOP paradigm, procedural paradigm, curriculum, pedagogy

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