Pictures to objects: transitioning to object oriented programming

Teaching programming is considered hard, but transitioning from procedural to object oriented programming is even harder. Yet, this is what the new National Digital Technologies curriculum expects of every Australian student. An examination of the literature reveals that transitioning to object oriented programmingis diffcult, but for unknown reasons. Here, we examine and study this transition through the literature and a survey. The survey results help us identify programming concepts which are easier, and other concepts which are more diffcult, tolearn. The data gathered suggests that fourteen years old is the optimal age for learning object oriented programming. Based on the information gathered through the literature review and survey, a new visual programming language for the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 that can assist in the transition to object oriented programming is created. We propose a new measure to determine how hard an object oriented programming language is to learn and discover five potential threshold object oriented concepts. It is hoped this project will provide insight into the transition to object orientation and ease the diffcult transition to object oriented programming.