Christine Alvarado
Gustavo Umbelino
Mia Minnes
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.
- Alireza Ahadi and Raymond Lister. 2013. Geek Genes, Prior Knowledge, Stumbling Points and Learning Edge Momentum: Parts of the One Elephant?. In ICER '13. 123--128. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Christine Alvarado, Cynthia Bailey Lee, and Gary Gillespie. 2014. New CS1 Pedagogies and Curriculum, the Same Success Factors?. In SIGCSE '14. 379--384. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lecia J. Barker, Melissa O'Neill, and Nida Kazim. 2014. Framing Classroom Climate for Student Learning and Retention in Computer Science. In SIGCSE '14. 319--324. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Marie desJardins and Michael Littman. 2010. Broadening Student Enthusiasm for Computer Science with a Great Insights Course. In SIGCSE '10. 157--161. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zachary Dodds, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Christine Alvarado, and Geoff Kuenning. 2008. Evaluating a Breadth-first Cs 1 for Scientists. In SIGCSE '08. 266--270. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Barbara Ericson. Accessed August 20, 2017. AP Data for the United States 1998--2016. http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/595. (Accessed August 20, 2017).Google Scholar
- Mark Guzdial. 2013. Exploring Hypotheses About Media Computation. In ICER '13. 19--26. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dianne Hagan and Selby Markham. 2000. Does It Help to Have Some Programming Experience Before Beginning a Computing Degree Program?. In ITiCSE '00. 25--28. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Michael Haungs, Christopher Clark, John Clements, and David Janzen. 2012. Improving First-year Success and Retention Through Interest-based CS0 Courses. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 589--594. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edward Holden and Elissa Weeden. 2003. The Impact of Prior Experience in an Information Technology Programming Course Sequence. In CITC4 '03. 41--46. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Michael S. Kirkpatrick and Chris Mayfield. 2017. Evaluating an Alternative CS1 for Students with Prior Programming Experience. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 333--338. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Külli Kori, Margus Pedaste, -li Leijen, and Eno Tõnisson. 2016. The Role of Programming Experience in ICT Students? Learning Motivation and Academic Achievement. International Journal of Information and Education Technology 6, 5 (2016), 331--337.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jane Margolis. 2008. Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing. MIT Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Margolis and A. Fisher. 2003. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Cindy Marling and David Juedes. 2016. CS0 for Computer Science Majors at Ohio University. In SIGCSE '16. 138--143. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alexis Martin, Frieda McAlear, and Allison Scott. 2015. Path Not Found: Disparities in Computer Science Course Access in California High Schools. Technical Report. Level Playing Field Institute.Google Scholar
- Monica M. McGill, Adrienne Decker, and Amber Settle. 2016. Undergraduate Students&Rsquo; Perceptions of the Impact of Pre-College Computing Activities on Choices of Major. Trans. Comput. Educ. 16, 4, Article 15 (June 2016), 33 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Leo Porter, Cynthia Bailey Lee, and Beth Simon. 2013. Halving Fail Rates Using Peer Instruction: A Study of Four Computer Science Courses. In SIGCSE '13. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Leo Porter and Beth Simon. 2013. Retaining Nearly One-Third more Majors with a Trio of Instructional Best Practices in CS1. In SIGCSE '13. 165--170. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anthony Robins. 2010. Learning edge momentum: a new account of outcomes in CS1. Computer Science Education 20, 1 (2010), 37--71.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Christine Rogerson and Elsje Scott. 2010. The Fear Factor: How It Affects Students Learning to Program in a Tertiary Environment. Journal of Information Technology Education 9 (2010), 147--171.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Beth Simon, Päivi Kinnunen, Leo Porter, and Dov Zazkis. 2010. Experience Report: CS1 for Majors with Media Computation. In ITiCSE '10. 214--218. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anya Tafliovich, Jennifer Campbell, and Andrew Petersen. 2013. A Student Perspective on Prior Experience in CS1. In SIGCSE '13. 239--244. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Allison Elliott Tew, Charles Fowler, and Mark Guzdial. 2005. Tracking an Innovation in Introductory CS Education from a Research University to a Two-year College. In SIGCSE '05. 416--420. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Elise H. Turner, Erik Albert, Roy M. Turner, and Laurence Latour. 2007. Retaining Majors Through the Introductory Sequence. In SIGCSE '07. 24--28. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jennifer Wang, Hai Hong, Jason Ravitz, and Marielena Ivory. Gender Differences in Factors Influencing Pursuit of Computer Science and Related Fields. In ITiCSE '15. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- The Persistent Effect of Pre-College Computing Experience on College CS Course Grades
Recommendations
The persistent effect of pre-college computing experience on college CS course grades
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 ...
Designing and running a pre-college computing course
Enrollments in undergraduate computer science programs have declined steadily over the past few years. Overall, high school computer science curriculum is limited to either basic usage of Microsoft office tools or some advanced placement programming. ...
Comments