Paper Title
Learning Difficulties of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) In University of Ilorin - Nigeria: Students� Perspectives

Abstract
Many studies have described natures of difficulties facing students in learning programming. However, very little work has been done to identify the reasons that cause the difficulties students encounter in learning the subject. This study is a survey designed to determine natures and causes of difficulties facing students in learning of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). A mixed methodology was applied where both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to investigate the study under view. Second and third year computer science students of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria were used as population for the survey. The study was conducted by enquiring from students in the subject, what they struggle to learn, using questionnaires as the research instrument. Results obtained from the study show that students perceived as most difficult issues in learning OOP: understanding what exactly happens inside the computer when it executes a program, misunderstanding of memory operations, difficulty in building up and understanding how the program solve the given problem task. And these were caused from such reasons identified as: ineffective teaching pedagogy in OOP, poor programming planning and complexities in the available teaching and learning tools in OOP. Based on the findings, it was recommended that: educators and programming tools developer should be made to be aware of the data bank containing various difficulties facing programming students. This will give information on direction on how to adequately prepare and develop needed teaching materials in OOP and programming in general. Keywords- Learning Difficulties, OOP, Students Perspectives, Misunderstanding, Teaching Materials