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

Abstract

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.

Learners’ Differences in Blended Learner-Centric Approach for a Common Programming Subject

“…Teaching programming subjects to first year students is a difficult task in higher education [4], with many challenges encountered by lecturers [3], as large cohorts may exhibit a wide spectrum of prior programming experience, background, and interests [5]. On one end of the spectrum, some students have minimum prior programming skills, while on the other end, some of them already have substantial hands-on programming experience [6].…”

“…Prior programming knowledge of students could be a possible predictor of success in programming courses [6,23]; it can trigger better motivation and confidence levels to achieve learning goals [5]. Students with prior hands-on programming experience have a more positive attitude and lower chances of dropping out, as compared with students without prior programming knowledge [9].…”

“…Various approaches have been explored to improve teaching of programming courses, with different levels of curriculum for students with less prior experience [5]. Separate optional introductory courses have been offered to students with less experience [26,27].…”