Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

How do we assess learning in complex technology-mediated practices? How does the coordination of technological af-fordances and constraints mediate immediate performance and individual learning? In the technology-mediated practiceof programming, the compiler functions as a source of both affordances and constraints to the human cognitive agent.The compiler affords the compilation of executable programs and dynamically informative compiler feedback, while thecompiler also constrains acceptable code to a specific syntax. In this in-class experimental study, I investigate the contri-bution of compiler affordances and constraints to performance and learning in programming. The study results indicateaffordances as important facilitators of immediate performance. Conversely, constraints appear important mediators ofconceptual learning, which in turn facilitates internalized thinking decoupled from the original technological resource.The findings imply a need for teaching and learning activities that emphasize practicing resource-coordination and foran assessment practice that intelligently combines technology-mediated resource-rich tasks with decoupled resource-poortasks.