The Role of Self-Regulation in Programming Problem Solving Process and Success

While prior work has investigated many aspects of programming problem solving, the role of self- regulationin problem solving success has received little attention. In this paper we contribute a framework for reasoning about self- regulationin programming problem solving. We then use this framework to investigate how 37 novice programmers of varying experience used self- regulationduring a sequence of programming problems. We analyzed the extent to which novices engaged in five kinds of self- regulationduring their problem solving, how this self- regulationvaried between students enrolled in CS1 and CS2, and how self- regulationplayed a role in structuring problem solving. We then investigated the relationship between self- regulationand programming errors. Our results indicate that while most novices engage in self- regulationto navigate and inform their problem solving efforts, these self- regulationefforts are only effective when accompanied by programming knowledge adequate to succeed at solving a given problem, and only some types of self- regulationappeared related to errors. We discuss the implications of these findings on problem solving pedagogy in computing education.