Object Interaction Competence Model v. 2.0

Teaching and learning object oriented programming has to take into account the specific object oriented characteristics of program execution, namely the interaction of objects during runtime. Prior to the research reported in this article, we have developed a competence model for object interaction and a test instrument for that model. This article assesses the problems involved in the first version of the instrument and associated empirical results. Based on the discussion and analysis of the prior results, we describe the rationale behind refining the hierarchy, and present a refined test instrument. We then describe a first evaluative study with third semester students and present its results as well as an discussion of the validity of the refined instrument. The empirical results show that the hierarchy is taxonomic (i.e. to understand level n one needs to understand all lower levels) but there where problems with the test used.