As ChatGPT and similar AI-based coding tools become increasingly available, important questions arise regarding whether educators should allow students to use such technologies in programming education. If the answer is yes, at what stage in a typical four-year computer science curriculum should these tools be introduced? Furthermore, how can ChatGPT be used to optimize educational benefits without depriving students of valuable learning opportunities?
This invited talk explores these questions by examining the cognitive development of students in programming. It presents the processes through which students evolve from novice to professional programmers and introduces fundamental concepts and theories, including schemata, the cognitive features of software design, and the integrated software development model. The talk provides in-depth and timely insights into these issues from a programming cognition perspective.
Department of Computer Science
Western Washington University
Fuqun Huang is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Western Washington University, Washington State, USA. Before joining Western, she was a Research Assistant Professor (Principal Investigator) at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. She has two years of postdoctoral research experience at The Ohio State University and was an honorary visiting scholar at the Centre for Software Reliability, City St George's, University of London. She has ten years of leadership experience in the U.S. nonprofit sector and seven years of experience as a technical lead in the aviation industry. She holds a PhD and a BSE in Systems Engineering from Beihang University, Beijing, China.
Dr. Huang's research focuses on the trustworthiness of computer systems, with a particular emphasis on human error mechanisms that contribute to faults and vulnerabilities of software systems. Since first proposing this interdisciplinary area internationally in 2011, she has pioneered a series of breakthroughs and published a book and about 50 papers in leading journals and conferences. Her work has led to educational innovations in Computer Science. One notable outcome is the creation of the course Human Errors in Software Engineering, the first of its kind, and Dr. Huang was recognized with a New Faculty Award at the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE 2023) by IEEE Education Society.
Dr. Huang has been actively serving the international research community. She is the Steering Chair of the IEEE International Workshop on Human Factors for Software Dependability and serves as Publicity Co-Chair for DSN 2026 and DSN 2023. She is a Program Committee member for the DSN 2026 Disrupt Track, the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2026 Research Track, ISSRE 2025 Research Track, ISSRE 2022 Doctoral Symposium), and the International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security (QRS Research Track, 2022–2026).
Dr. Huang also actively contributes to Computer Science and Engineering education, e.g., PC member/reviewer for CSTE 2026, CSTE 2025, the ACM SIGCSE TS, ITiCSE, and IEEE FIE 2023, FIE 2024, and a Session Chair for IEEE FIE 2024. She has been the Chair of the Assessment and Accreditation Committee in the Department of Computer Science since 2024, overseeing ABET accreditation for Computer Science, Cybersecurity, and Data Science programs at Western Washington University. Dr. Huang has been delivering tutorials at international conferences, including "Preventing Human Errors for Dependable Computer System Design" at the 56th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2026) and "Human Error Prevention for Trustworthy Cyber-Physical Systems" at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2026).
