How people learn to program9 min read

Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching

Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, Richard E. Clark · 2006 · Educational Psychologist 41(2), 75–86

Throwing novices at open problems and letting them ‘discover’ overloads working memory; explicit guidance and worked examples win until expertise arrives.

Read the paper ↗doi:10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 ↗

The short version

→Working memory is tiny; long-term memory is what makes you good. Instruction that ignores this — ‘figure it out yourself’ — is less effective and less efficient for beginners.
→The worked-example effect: studying solved problems beats solving equivalent problems for novices, because problem-solving search eats the capacity needed to learn.
→The advantage of guidance fades as prior knowledge grows — the expertise reversal effect. What helps a novice can hinder an expert.
→‘Learn to code by building a project from scratch’ is exactly the strategy the paper argues against for a true beginner.

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