This study focuses on CS minor students' decisions to drop out from the CS1 course. The high level of drop out percentage has been a problem at Helsinki University of Technology for many years. This course has yearly enrolment of 500-600 students and the drop out percentage has varied from 30-50 percents.Since we did not have clear picture of drop out reasons we conducted a qualitative interview research in which 18 dropouts from the CS1 course were interviewed. The reasons of drop out were categorized and, in addition, each case was investigated individually. This procedure enabled us to both list the reasons and to reveal the cumulative nature of drop out reasons.The results indicate that several reasons affect students' decision to quit the CS1 course. The most frequent reasons were the lack of time and the lack of motivation. However, both of these reasons were in turn affected by factors, such as the perceived difficulty of the course, general difficulties with time managing and planning studies, or the decision to prefer something else. Furthermore, low comfort level and plagiarism played a role in drop out. In addition, drop out reasons cumulated.This study shows that the complexity and large variety of factors involved in students' decision to drop the course. This indicates that simple actions to improve teaching or organization on a CS1 course to reduce drop out may be ineffective. Efficient intervention to the problem apparently requires a combination of many different actions that take into consideration the versatile nature of reasons involved in drop out.

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We analyze the Computing Education Research (CER) literature to discover what theories, conceptual models and frameworks recent CER builds on. This gives rise to a broad understanding of the theoretical basis of CER that is useful for researchers working in that area, and has the potential to help CER develop its own identity as an independent field of study.Our analysis takes in seven years of publications (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011) 308 papers) in three venues that publish long research papers in computing education: the journals ACM Transactions of Computing Education (TOCE) and Computer Science Education (CSEd), and the conference International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER). We looked at the theoretical background works that are used or extended in the papers, not just referred to when describing related work. These background works include theories, conceptual models and frameworks. For each background work we tried to identify the discipline from which it originates, to gain an understanding of how CER relates to its neighboring fields. We also identified theoretical works originating within CER itself, showing that the field is building on its own theoretical works.Our main findings are that there is a great richness of work on which recent CER papers build; there are no prevailing theoretical or technical works that are broadly applied across CER; about half the analyzed papers build on no previous theoretical work, but a considerable share of these are building their own theoretical constructions. We discuss the significance of these findings for the whole field and conclude with some recommendations.

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The constant comparative method was used to explicate the experience computing majors have with programming assignments in a CS1 course. Findings from a series of four interviews conducted with a purposeful sample of nine students revealed that the primary reflective experience with programming assignments was emotional. That is, the way students remembered and discussed their experiences with programming assignments was dominated by emotional experiences and reactions. We identified six stages whose dimensions capture the variation in students' emotional experiences with programming assignments. This paper reports the beginnings of analysis geared at developing a theory of students' programming assignment experience, rich in detail and grounded in student experience. When completed such a theory may lead to curricular supports, interventions, or tools, to help steer student experience away from the most harmful of emotional tolls.