Comparison Experiment of Learning State Between Visual Programming Language and Text Programming Language

Recently, visual programming languages such as Scratch have been popular among novice programmers. Afterward, they employ text-based programming languages such as C and Java. Nevertheless, there are significant barriers between visual and text-based languages. Thus, it is important to establish a seamless transition from visual to text-based languages. In this study, we clarify the difference in the learning process between visual language and text-based language by measuring brain waves. Specifically, experiments will be conducted to solve problems with various difficulty levels for learning visual and text-based languages. The brain waves will be measured, and the values of β/α will be evaluated. Results show that the values of β/α when solving difficult problems increased in the text-based language, but not in the visual language. This suggests that beginners may be thinking differently in the learning process of visual and text-based languages.