So I guess the real underlying message they are trying to say is, if a student can't pass an algebra test, they probably can't learn to program, so don't even bother trying to teach it to them. A more generalized form of the hypothesis is that: most people can't learn how to program.
Both forms of the hypothesis are pretty easy to refute and have already been refuted. See http://code.org and http://madewithcode.com for example. I just taught 2nd graders programming yesterday who don't even know how to divide, let alone any algebra.
And of course, there's always the radical idea that maybe you could actually teach them some algebra skills in the context of programming tasks. Just like some calculus students may need some remedial instruction and support.
Luckily, there's a whole field of research with several articles on this very topic. The field is called computer science education. See SIGCSE, for example: http://www.sigcse.org/
In fact, the field has already researched and debated this issue before, as well. There was a controversial article called "The camel has two humps" in 2006 that made the same claim as this post that a simple aptitude test could predict whether someone could learn how to program or not. The article (which was never even officially published) was later retracted:
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-...
We are focused on making people professional, employable programmers. While I agree that everyone can play with scratch or build a basic webpage, that's different than the programming skills required to be employed in most dev jobs today.
Both forms of the hypothesis are pretty easy to refute and have already been refuted. See http://code.org and http://madewithcode.com for example. I just taught 2nd graders programming yesterday who don't even know how to divide, let alone any algebra.
And of course, there's always the radical idea that maybe you could actually teach them some algebra skills in the context of programming tasks. Just like some calculus students may need some remedial instruction and support.
Luckily, there's a whole field of research with several articles on this very topic. The field is called computer science education. See SIGCSE, for example: http://www.sigcse.org/
In fact, the field has already researched and debated this issue before, as well. There was a controversial article called "The camel has two humps" in 2006 that made the same claim as this post that a simple aptitude test could predict whether someone could learn how to program or not. The article (which was never even officially published) was later retracted: http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-...