> "The discovery of these “sink states,” and how students 
    > got into them, offers opportunities beyond predicting 
    > grades: They open the door for developing systems to 
    > encourage students to go down more fruitful paths before 
    > they become lost in the programming weeds."

In the real world, my most valuable learning experiences have been those dead ends. Because I don't repeat those mistakes - better to make them and learn from them than to be steered away from them before they happen.