An overview on common mistakes by students for introduction, basic elements and selection control structure in Fundamentals of Computer Problem Solving (CSC128) course / Naemah Abdul Wahab, Wan Anisha Wan Mohammad and Azlina Mohd Mydin

Computer programming is an abstract subject that requires correct understanding, suitable teaching approaches and tools as well as proper learning materials to support the teaching and learning process of novice learners. According to Robins et. al (2003), they stated that du Boulay (1989) describe five domains that a novice programmers must mastered in learning programming are the general orientation of a program, the notational machine model, the notation of a programming language, programming structures and pragmatics In view of the above research on the key aspects of learning to program, the following section will discuss on the background of computer problem solving course that is offered in our university to a non-major of computer course learners, what are the common mistakes that these novice programmers done according to the first three chapters in our syllabus and a summarisation of suggestion for the learners to ponder.