The software industry needs well-trained software designers and one important aspect of software design is the ability to model software designs visually and understand what visual models represent. However, previous research indicates that software design is a difficult task to many students. This article reports empirical findings from a…

The present work has its focus on university-level engineering education students that do not intend to major in computer science but still have to take a mandatory programming course. Phenomenography and variation theory are applied to empirical data from a study of students' conceptions of computer programming. A phenomenographic outcome space…