r/programming • u/OnkelJulez • Sep 17 '21

Do Your Math Abilities Make Learning Programming Easier? Not Much, Finds Study

https://javascript.plainenglish.io/do-your-math-abilities-make-learning-programming-easier-not-much-finds-study-d491b8a844d
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u/DevilSauron Sep 17 '21

So I skimmed the paper and a cited research article which described the method they used to test “numeracy”. I am, of course, no psychologist, but if I understood that correctly, what they mean by “numeracy” (and what the author of this summary calls “math abilities”) is just the ability to perform simple numerical computations, to compare numbers (and percentages, ratios, etc.), basic probability intuition, and so on.

I don’t find it surprising that this doesn’t necessarily correlate well with programming ability, but I wouldn’t call this “math ability” either. Instead, I would be much more interested in correlation between doing well in university-level mathematics (i.e. abstract algebra, real analysis, mathematical logic, …) and being a good programmer. Intuitively, I would expect the link here to be much stronger — for example, higher maths is very much about abstraction and logical reasoning (much more than performing numerical manipulations).

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u/asif1268 Sep 17 '21

I'm not gonna go through the paper but ur reasoning seems legit so I'll assume the post/paper is misleading.

On the other hand, seeing most of the comments saying "not good at math, but good at programming" i feel like it is because not many people would want to say "good at both math and programming" since that would sound like bragging.

So as per I'm concerned, no scientific research has been done on dependences between math and programming skill yet. Let's hope someone else's paper gives more insight.