Identifying SQL misconceptions of novices

Abstract

H ave you ever struggled with writing a SQL query to retrieve data? Students certainly do. In this paper we set out to investigate why this is the case. The first step to making less mistakes, is to find the underlying reasons why these mistakes are made. Through a think-aloud study with 21 students we identified various SQL errors; and from these deduced 14 SQL misconceptions.The four reasons we found for mistakes are: interference of previous course knowledge, generalizing answers to questions where they do not fit, differences in language usage between SQL and natural language, and incomplete or incorrect mental models. Publish Your WorkOpen Access With ACM! ACM o ers a variety of Open Access publishing options to ensure that your work is disseminated to the widest possible readership of computer scientists around the world.