Introducing Computer Science to High School Students through Logic Programming

TL;DR

This study explores how high school students learn computer science through logic programming, highlighting its effectiveness in teaching foundational concepts and skills in an engaging way.

Contribution

It demonstrates that logic programming is a viable paradigm for introducing novice students to core computing concepts in high school.

Findings

Students engage in abstraction, reasoning, and coding.

Logic programming supports foundational CS skills.

Students improve through iterative debugging and revision.

Abstract

This paper investigates how high school students in an introductory computer science course approach computing in the Logic Programming (LP) paradigm. This qualitative study shows how novice students operate within the LP paradigm while engaging in foundational computing concepts and skills: students are engaged in a cyclical process of abstraction, reasoning, and creating representations of their ideas in code while also being informed by the (procedural) requirements and the revision/debugging process. As these computing concepts and skills are also expected in traditional approaches to introductory K-12 CS courses, this paper asserts that LP is a viable paradigm choice for high school novices. This paper is under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).