From: raja@... (Raja S.)
Date: 2001-09-25T04:51:14+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:21646] understanding recursion vs iteration

In connection with the recent discussion of the ease of understanding
iteration vs recursion I'd like to point out the paper

"Problems in Comprehending Recursion and Suggested Solutions"
ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/raja/iticse_2001_recursion_problems.pdf

Its based on a qualitative study of students of mine having problems with
recursive thinking.  From voice protocols of their problem solving process
the issues seem to be:

  . Insufficient exposure to declarative thinking in a programming context 
  . Inadequate appreciation of the concept of functional abstraction 
  . Lack of a proper methodology to express a recursive solution 

The paper also outlines a template based approach that we've been using
quite successfully for cultivating recursive thinking in our students.  This
study needs to be followed up with a more rigorous quantitative evaluation.  
Thought some folks on this list might be interested.

Regards

Raja