Retaining majors through the introductory sequence

Turner, Elise H.; Albert, Erik; Turner, Roy M.; Latour, Laurence

doi:10.1145/1227310.1227321

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…For example, some redesigned introductory courses begin with content that students are unlikely to have had exposure to in high school (e.g. [5,25]). Others use a contextualized computing approach such as media computation, which has been shown to increase retention and decrease fail rates for non-majors and other students with no pre-college CS experience [7,22,24].…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The persistent effect of pre-college computing experience on college CS course grades

2018

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Many college computer science majors have little or no pre-college computing experience. Previous work has shown that inexperienced students under-perform their experienced peers when placed in the same introductory courses and are more likely to drop out of the CS program. However, not much is known about what, if any, differences may persist beyond the introductory sequence for students who remain in the program. We conducted a study across all levels of a CS program at a large public university in the United States to determine whether grade differences exist between students with and without pre-college experience, and if so, for what types of experiences. We find significant grade differences in courses at all levels of the program. We further find that students who took AP Computer Science receive significantly higher average grades---by up to a half grade---in nearly all courses we studied. Pre-college experience appears to have a weaker relationship with retention and with low-stakes assessment grades. We discuss the limitations of these findings and implications for high school and college level CS courses and programs.

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Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The persistent effect of pre-college computing experience on college CS course grades

2018

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“…CS1 is often an introduction to computer science and programming, and CS2 is often an introduction to data structures and algorithms, though the subject matter varies across institutions [11]. Students' performance and experience with the introductory programming sequence have a major impact on retention in the Computer Science major and has been often studied (e.g., [17,28]. While students in CS1 may be dipping their toe in the water, students in CS2 have committed to a curricular path and failure in the CS2 course can be more impactful.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Predicting Success and Failure in CS2

Layman

Song

Guinn

2020

Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Southeast Conference

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Factors driving success and failure in CS1 are the subject of much study but less so for CS2. This paper investigates the transition from CS1 to CS2 in search of leading indicators of success in CS2. Both CS1 and CS2 at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) are taught in Python with annual enrollments of 300 and 150 respectively. In this paper, we report on the following research questions:(1) Are CS1 grades indicators of CS2 grades?(2) Does a quantitative relationship exist between CS2 course grade and a modified version of the SCS1 concept inventory? (3) What are the most challenging aspects of CS2, and how well does CS1 prepare students for CS2 from the student's perspective?We provide a quantitative analysis of 2300 CS1 and CS2 course grades from 2013-2019. In Spring 2019, we administered a modified version of the SCS1 concept inventory to 44 students in the first week of CS2. Further, 69 students completed an exit questionnaire at the conclusion of CS2 to gain qualitative student feedback on their challenges in CS2 and on how well CS1 prepared them for CS2. We find that 56% of students' grades were lower in CS2 than CS1, 18% improved their grades, and 26% earned the same grade. Of the changes, 62% were within one grade point. We find a statistically significant correlation between the modified SCS1 score and CS2 grade points. Students identify linked lists and class/object concepts among the most challenging. Student feedback on CS2 challenges and the adequacy of their CS1 preparations identify possible avenues for improving the CS1-CS2 transition. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics → CS1; Student assessment. KEYWORDS CS1, CS2, student assessment

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Learning styles

Zander

Thomas

Simon

et al. 2009

Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

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We present what students say about their preferred learning style to succeed in introductory programming. Using the Felder-Silverman learning styles, students contrasted the 'best' learning style for programming with the 'best' for learning mathematics. Overall students believe that while they learn mathematics using a reflective style, learning to program is significantly more active. They also believe learning mathematics has a strong verbal component, whereas learning programming is primarily visual.

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Retaining majors through the introductory sequence

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

The persistent effect of pre-college computing experience on college CS course grades

The persistent effect of pre-college computing experience on college CS course grades

Toward Predicting Success and Failure in CS2

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