miscon:programming.control.if-is-loop · draft · trust low · v0.1.1 · kind misapplied-analogy

An if statement repeats while its condition holds

The body of an if statement keeps running for as long as the condition is true, like a while loop.

Stable URI: https://open-misconceptions.github.io/miscon-data/m/programming.control.if-is-loop
UUID: aa78ad26-c8b4-4d72-8e2f-84a48c0efed1
Domain: programming.control
Level band: secondary, undergraduate
Locale: en
About: https://open-misconceptions.github.io/miscon-data/c/programming.control.conditional (Miscon)

Evidence patterns

Pattern 0: trace an if statement whose body keeps its condition true

predicts repeated execution of the body

Item

x = 0
if x < 3:
    x = x + 1
print(x)

Expected1

Response3

Discriminators

vs a slip. Consistent across items; the learner describes the if as 'checking until'. A slip is a single wrong count.

vs programming.control.while-checked-continuously. That belief is about while loops exiting mid-body; this one is about if statements looping.

vs programming.control.conditional-is-sequence. Sequence believers run both branches once; if-loopers run one branch many times.

Relations

conflicts_with: An if statement evaluates its condition once and runs at most one branch (external)
resolved_by: An if statement evaluates its condition once and runs at most one branch (external)
A loop checks its condition only at defined points and repeats its whole body (external)
confusable_with: programming.control.conditional-is-sequence
programming.control.while-checked-continuously

Alignments

progmiscon Java/IfIsLoop (close-match)

Provenance

Origin: llm-drafted

Chiodini, L., Moreno Santos, I., Gallidabino, A., Tafliovich, A., Santos, A. L., & Hauswirth, M. (2021). A curated inventory of programming language misconceptions. In Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '21), 380-386. doi:10.1145/3430665.3456343
Inventory consulted for the misconception name and scope only; progmiscon publishes no licence for its text, so Open Misconceptions' statements and examples are written independently.
Sorva, J. (2012). Visual Program Simulation in Introductory Programming Education (Doctoral dissertation, Aalto University). Appendix A catalogues introductory programming misconceptions from the literature. link
Sirkiä, T., & Sorva, J. (2012). Exploring programming misconceptions: An analysis of student mistakes in visual program simulation exercises. In Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, 19-28. doi:10.1145/2401796.2401799

Drafted from the cited literature for the Open Misconceptions seed pack; statement, examples and discriminators are original text. Awaiting maintainer review.

Review status

Status draft, trust low (computed from the reviews below against the reviewer registry).

No reviews yet.

Formats

Raw JSON
CASE 1.1 package (CFItem aa78ad26-c8b4-4d72-8e2f-84a48c0efed1)
Source on GitHub

Cite

miscon:programming.control.if-is-loop
https://open-misconceptions.github.io/miscon-data/m/programming.control.if-is-loop