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A comparison of the ability of novices and experienced third generation language programmers to learn fourth generation languages

University of British Columbia

This thesis describes research which was carried out to determine whether novices could program in fourth generation languages as well as experienced third generation programmers. It was thought that experience with a third generation language could be transferred to a fourth generation environment. This hypothesis was tested using a completely randomized block design lab experiment consisting of two factors and a block. The two factors were experience with third generation languages, and complexity of the task. The block was the educational institution where the lab sessions were conducted. Each of the factors and the block had two levels. The specific hypotheses tested were: 1. Experienced third generation language programmers will record higher mean scores on both simple and complex tests of fourth generation languages. 2. The difference in test scores, between simple and complex fourth generation language tasks, will be greater for novices than for experienced third generation language programmers. 3. Experience with other software tools, especially report writers, query languages, and other fourth generation languages will affect the subjects' performance on the fourth generation language tests. Using FOCUS as the fourth generation language, lab sessions were run for fifty-seven subjects. The results indicate that experience with third generation languages affects a subject's performance on simple tests of fourth generation languages. The results also indicate that the experience has no effect on complex tests of fourth generation languages. Because of a lack of data, no meaningful conclusions could be reached for hypothesis number three. We feel experienced third generation language programmers scored higher than novices on simple 4GL reporting tests because experienced 3GL programmers had skills which were very similar to the skills needed in a simple 4GL reporting application. There are several possible ways of explaining why experienced programmers could do no better than novices on complex 4GL reporting tests. One possible explanation follows; because complex 4GL reporting commands are so different from third generation language commands, third generation language programmers had no advantage over novices. A second explanation might be that the complex test was too difficult, or too long. As a result of this difficulty, no one was able to perform very well. We conclude that experienced programmers should be preferred over novices when applications involve simple 4GL commands. More research is necessary to determine if in fact novices can perform as well as experienced third generation language programmers on complex 4GL tasks.

Text

2010-06-30

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26111

Business Administration

University of British Columbia

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