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Introduction This paper concerns the development, use and evaluation of a tool that helps novice programmers generate pseudocode designs for programming problems. It discusses: the difficulties of learning to program; what is meant by pseudocode; the development of the tool; and the evaluation of the tool with students. Difficulty of Learning to Program Learning to write computer programs is not easy (e.g., Scholtz & Wiedenbeck, 1992) and this is reflected in the low levels of achievement experienced by many students in first programming courses. Jenkins (2002) suggests that the learning of programming is a perennial problem. Students struggle as they try to master the subject and it is not uncommon for a student's first experience of programming to be so negative and stressful that it leads to academic failure or withdrawal. In a study into the teaching and learning of first year programming, it was found that the main concerns were high failure rates, a low flow of students into higher degrees, and a perception of a wide variation of teaching skills (Carbone et al, 2000). Programming is a complex process involving many steps (e.g., Winslow, 1996). The process comprises: * Studying a given problem statement / set of requirements and producing an algorithm, often in pseudocode, to solve that problem; * Translating the algorithm into the programming code of a certain programming language; and * Testing and amending the program until it meets the original set of requirements. Frequently students combine steps one and two above and attempt to produce algorithms in the programming language that is being utilised in their course of study rather than in a design language such as pseudocode. Many instructors do not encourage the use of pseudocode with students and the majority of introductory programming texts include few, if any, references to pseudocode. What is Pseudocode? Pseudocode is: A detailed yet readable description of what a computer program or algorithm must do, expressed in a formally-styled natural language rather than in a programming language. Pseudocode is sometimes used as a detailed step in the process of developing a program. It allows designers or lead programmers to express the design in great detail and provides programmers a detailed template for the next step of writing code in a specific programming language (TechTarget, 2005). The following are two examples of pseudocode used to stipulate the algorithm for converting a Celsius temperature to Fahrenheit (Villanova University, 2005). Example 1 prompt user for a celsius temperature to be converted get input from user and store in a variable called celsiusTemp calculate: (celsiusTemp * (5/9)) + 32 and store in a variable called fahrenheitTemp display fahrenheitTemp Example 2 BASE = 32 CONVERSION_FACTOR = 9/5 prompt user for celsius temperature input celsiusTemp fahrenheitTemp = (celsiusTemp * CONVERSION_FACTOR) + BASE output fahrenheitTemp As seen above, the algorithms differ in the syntax that is used to describe the particular algorithm. Robertson (2003, p.7) points out that: There is no standard pseudocode at present. Authors seem to adopt their own special techniques and sets of rules, which often resemble a particular programming language. The fact that there is no standard is one of the reasons that many students bypass using it in their program designs and move directly to coding their solutions. Another reason for students disliking pseudocode is that the code is not executable and direct feedback of a design cannot therefore be obtained. There are also reasons why some instructors do not use pseudocode. The first reason is that an instructor may have their own "standard" pseudocode syntax that they wish to use and yet that standard is probably different to the format used in the available textbooks. …

The Development Use and Evaluation of a Program Design Tool in the Learning and Teaching of Software Development