Using Cognitive Load Theory to select an Environment for Teaching Mobile Apps Development

After considering a number of environments for the development of apps for mobile devices, we have evaluated five in terms of their suitability for students early in their programing study. For some of the evaluation we devised an evaluation scheme based on the principles of cognitive load theory to assess the relative ease or difficulty of learning and using each environment. After briefly presenting the scheme, we discuss our results, including our findings about which mobile apps development environments appear to show most promise for early-level programming students.

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