Improving University Students' Learning of Programming Using Customised Pseudocode

Pseudocode is a well-known tool for introducing students to the basics of programming. The aim of pseudocode is to make algorithmic constructs easy to write and to understand. In this study, we propose the design of a ‘natural’ pseudocode, with keywords frequently used in the mother tongue, referring to basic computational instructions and execution flow control. The core premise underlying this study is that students will better develop their algorithmic skills if they use their own pseudocode, using their preferred keywords. This international study includes a sample of a total of 405 first-year university students from different university degree programmes related to computer science, 60 Portuguese students, 58 Galician students and 287 students from Madrid. The same study is carried out in the corresponding mother tongue (Portuguese, Galician and Spanish) and divided into two phases. In the first, students answered a seven-question survey on the design of the pseudocode language. The results of this phase indicate that most of the keywords generally used in traditional pseudocode are not among the students' preferences. In the second phase, a six-question comprehension questionnaire was used to assess the students' understanding of algorithmic constructions by comparing three alternatives: the natural pseudocode in the mother tongue that they had chosen in the previous phase, the frequently used classical or standard pseudocode (also in the mother tongue) and pseudocode in English. The results show higher levels of understanding when using natural pseudocode.