In my efforts to teach others how to program, I have found that beginners commonly mix up the ideas of "variables" and "values", resulting in a fair amount of confusion and frustration. I have even come across people who think they are the same thing if they don't think very hard about it. This is probably in part because programming is so alien to humans; it’s a whole different category of task. In any case, if you want your beginning programmers to succeed, define your terms as clearly as possible and resolve any ambiguities, especially this one.