Flowchart-based approach to aid novice programmers: A novel framework

Many tools have been used in the programming area to teach programming to novices. The most familiar tools comprise of flowchart-based notation along with programming environments depending on icons. Much more exploration on this area has disclosed that the deficiency of problem-solving abilities is directly tied with language syntax that they apply and the development environment. The main objective of this research is to develop a framework for improving the problem-solving skills of novice programmers. Hence, our research proposes a novel strategy, simulating human mechanism of solving problems in programming by converting the textual description of a problem, in English, into a flowchart. Two knowledge bases are employed to interpret the programming meaning of a given textual description in an attempt to draw its flowchart. Our future work will include the implementation and evaluation of this proposed framework.