Learning styles in programming education: A systematic mapping study.

The interest on effective strategies to improve the learning process increased over the years. The usual practice is to know the characteristics of a student and how those can affect the learning style. The style describes how learners collect, select, interpret, organize and store information. This paper overviews the application of learning styles and how those affect the teaching of introductory programming. We performed a systematic mapping study to improve our knowledge about student characteristics in the teaching of programming. Twenty-one papers were relevant for our research. The main findings are: i) the Soloman-Felder Index is the most used model of learning style; ii) studies focus on the effects of learning styles on student performance; iii) instructors apply active approaches to motivate a different kind of learners. We conclude that learning style does affect a student's ability to learn. For this reason, teachers should incorporate those styles into their pedagogical material to cater to the majority of students needs.