In looking for academic research into how people learn to code, we came across a paper entitled “The camel has two humps”.
It is one of the strangest papers I’ve read. You should read it - it will amuse you.
To give one quote:
There is a vast quantity of literature describing different tools, or as they are known today Interactive Development Environments (IDEs). Programmers, who on the whole like to point and click, often expect that if you make programming point-and-click, then novices will find it easier. The entire field can be summarised as saying “no, they don’t”. It would be invidious to point the finger at any examples.
Many years later a retraction was published, which is even more intriguing!