Tricky Programming Concepts Aren’t
I'd like some actual empirical evidence that saying "this is tricky" or "this is difficult" actually de-motivates ("turns off") students. It might, but I can also plausibly imagine the reverse. What if you say "oh, this will be easy and fun!" and then they have trouble with it? IMHO, that might send the message that they're just dumb. At least when you say "it's tricky" and they struggle they may not think it's their fault and might be willing to keep trying.<p>I think you could spin a lot of plausible pedagogical theories, but I'd be more interested in seeing some actual evidence.