The effect of previous programming experience on the learning of scenario-based programming

In this paper we present qualitative findings on the influence of previous programming experience on the learning of the visual, scenario-based programming language of live sequence charts (LSC). Our findings suggest that previous programming experience leads programmers not only to misunderstand or misinterpret concepts that are new to them, but that it can also lead them to actively distort the new concepts in a way that enables them to use familiar programming patterns, rather than exploiting the new ones to good effect. Eventually, this leads to poor usage of some of the new concepts, and also to the creation of programs that behaved differently from what the programmers expected. We also show that previous programming experience can affect programmers' attitude towards new programming concepts. Attitude is known to have an effect on performance. Since LSC and its underlying concepts are of growing popularity in the software engineering community, it is interesting to investigate its learning process. Furthermore, we believe that our findings can shed light on some of the ways by which previous programming experience influences the learning of new programming concepts and paradigms.