The Main Types of Students’ Errors in the Process of Learning the Basics of Programming

Programming is one of the main disciplines for students studying Computer Science and Information Systems and Technologies. However, students make a significant number of mistakes when learning programming. These errors are of three types: syntactic, semantic, and algorithmic. Teachers use different methods to identify students’ mistakes in the process of studying programming. The reasons for students’ mistakes when studying programming are the peculiarities of the programming language (syntax and semantics), personal qualities of students (thoroughness, attentiveness, mathematical and analytical abilities, etc.), the method of teaching programming. In the process of analyzing errors made by students of the “Information Systems and Technologies” specialty, the existence of an inverse relationship between the number of syntactic errors and the level of mathematical abilities of students, between the number of semantic errors and the level of mathematical abilities of students, between the number of algorithmic errors and the level of mathematical abilities of students were established.