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An empirical study of junior secondary students' expression of algorithms in natural language

The formulation and interpretation of written procedures should be of central interest to many subject areas in education, especially those involving computing. This paper concerns the significance of students' written solutions to problems. It will describe an experiment with 12 to 13 year old (Year 8) students involving the description in natural language (English) of the construction of simple geometric models from unit cubes. Several conclusions can be drawn about the students' ability to express the solution to a problem requiring general algorithmic structures. The findings have implications for what can be expected of students at this level as well as indicating the need for deliberately teaching the use of some algorithmic constructions.