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Do older programmers perform as well as young ones? Exploring the intermediate effects of stress and programming experience

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Abstract

There is a widespread perception that older adults are underperformers when compared with younger adults in tasks that involve intense use of technology, such as computer programming. Building on schema theory, we developed a research model that contradicts this perception. To provide an initial test of the model, we conducted a computer programming experiment involving 140 student participants majoring in technology-related areas with ages ranging from 19 to 54 years. The participants were asked to develop, under some time pressure, a simple software application. The results of our analyses suggest that age was positively associated with programming experience and perceived stress, that programming experience was positively associated with programming performance, and that perceived stress was negatively associated with programming performance. A moderating effect analysis suggests that as programming experience increased, the association between perceived stress and programming performance weakened; going from strongly negative toward neutral. This happened even as age was controlled for. When taken together, these results suggest that the widespread perception that older adults are underperformers is unwarranted. With enough programming experience, older programmers generally perform no better or worse than young ones.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of International Business and Technology Studies, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Boulevard, Laredo, TX, 78041, USA

    Ned Kock

  2. Management Information Systems Department, University of Oklahoma, Adams Hall Room 305, 307 West Brooks, Norman, OK, 73019-4007, USA

    Murad Moqbel

  3. Division of International Business and Technology Studies, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Boulevard, Laredo, TX, 78045, USA

    Yusun Jung & Thant Syn

Authors
  1. Ned Kock
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  2. Murad Moqbel
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  3. Yusun Jung
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  4. Thant Syn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ned Kock.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Experimental task description

1.1 Purpose

The director of the PhD program at a school of business needs to make decisions on whether or not to admit a doctoral program applicant in a timely manner. The director of the PhD program will save time and be more productive if he or she has a stand-alone application at his desktop to make such a decision.

1.2 Algorithms

For an applicant to be eligible for admission, he/she must satisfy one of the following sets of conditions:

  • Have a GMAT greater than or equal to (≥) 600, a GPA greater than or equal to (≥) 3.5, WE greater than or equal to (≥) 0, and RecLtr greater than or equal to (≥) 80%.

  • Have a GMAT greater than or equal to (≥) 500, GPA greater than or equal to (≥) 3.8, WE greater than or equal to (≥) 1, and RecLtr greater than or equal to (≥) 90%.

1.3 Legend

  • GMAT: Graduate Management Aptitude Test.

  • GPA: Grade Point Average.

  • WE: Work Experience related to the major.

  • RecLtr: Composite rating of the student based on a structured recommendation letter.

1.4 Notes

  • The application should allow the director of the PhD program to reset all values on the screen to blank so that another calculation can be performed.

  • The decision should be run based on the term “Decide,” so please include a working button for this. The reset of the values should be designated by the term “Reset,” so please include a working button for this term as well. The decision output, once all information is entered into the program and the “Decide” button is clicked should be either, “Admit” or “Not Admit.”

Appendix 2: Measurement instrument

The questions and question-statements below were used for data collection, in addition to demographic questions. The questions on perceived stress were answered on a Likert-type scale going from 1 to 7. Programming performance was measured based on a rubric with five dimensions, whereby three researchers independently scored the quality of the software applications developed by the participants.

2.1 Perceived stress

Stress1: I felt stressed while completing this task.

Stress2: I felt nervous while completing this task.

Stress3: This task made me feel stressed.

Stress4: Completing this task was stressful.

2.2 Programming performance (based on rubric)

Perf1: Completeness of the software application.

Perf2: Correctness of the software application.

Perf3: Extent to which the software application met the requirements.

Perf4: Ease of use of interface.

Perf5: Programming code clarity.

Appendix 3: Programming performance scoring rubric

Below is the rubric we used to score programming performance. Three researchers independently scored the quality of the software applications developed by the participants, from which average scores were calculated for each of the five dimensions. Each individual dimension’s score was then included as an indicator, with respect to the programming performance variable, as part of the measurement model in our structural equation modeling analysis.

 

0–25

25–50

50–75

75–100

Completeness

The assignment was incomplete or completed without regard to instructions

The assignment was only partially completed per instructions

The assignment was moderately completed per instructions

The assignment was fully completed per instructions

Correctness

The program did not perform per instructions

The program performed only partially per instructions

The program performed moderately per instructions

The program performed fully per instructions

Requirements met

Adheres to less than 70% of standard

Adheres to between 70 and 80% of standard

Adheres to between 80 and 90% of standard

Adheres to between 90 and 100% of standard

Ease of use

Required user to reread before understood

Required user to reread to confirm understood

Reread was not required to confirm understood

Immediately understood

Code clarity

Code is unclear or too specific to stated purpose to be revised

Code is enough to revise

Code is clear and modular enough to ease revision

Code is clear and general enough to simplify revision

Appendix 4: Coefficients for measurement instrument validation

Loadings, weights, cross-loadings, cross-weights, and indicator effect sizes are summarized in Table 6. Loadings, shown in bold, are from a structure matrix and thus unrotated; cross-loadings, shown in italics, are from a pattern matrix and thus oblique-rotated (Ehremberg and Goodhart 1976; Thompson 2004). This combination of structure and pattern matrices’ loadings allows for easy identification of possible validity problems, while at the same time obviating the need for a potentially distorting normalization procedure (Ferguson 1981; Kock 2015b; Ogasawara 1999).

Table 6 Combined loadings and cross-loadings, weights, and effect sizes
Full size table

R-squared, adjusted R-squared, composite reliability, Cronbach’s alpha, average variance extracted, and Q-squared coefficients are listed in Table 7. Composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients are reliability measures (Fornell and Larcker 1981; Nunnaly 1978; Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). Average variances extracted are sometimes used for convergent validity assessment, in addition to loadings (Fornell and Larcker 1981). Q-squared coefficients are used, together with R-squared coefficients, for predictive validity assessment (Geisser 1974; Kock 2015b; Stone 1974).

Table 7 Latent variable coefficients
Full size table

Latent variable correlations and square roots of average variances extracted are listed in Table 8. These coefficients are used for discriminant validity assessment; that is, to assess whether measures associated with each latent variable are not confused by respondents with measures associated with other latent variables (Fornell and Larcker 1981; Kock 2014; Schumacker and Lomax 2004).

Table 8 Latent variable correlations and square roots of average variances extracted
Full size table

Table 9 shows variance inflation factors (Hair et al. 2009) from a full collinearity test. In a full collinearity test, variance inflation factors are calculated for all of the variables in the model (Kock and Lynn 2012). This allows for the assessment of whole-model collinearity in the presence of variables measured through single indicators. Full collinearity variance inflation factors can also be used in common method bias tests (Kock 2015c).

Table 9 Full collinearity variance inflation factors
Full size table

The measurement model assessment results summarized in the tables above suggest that the measurement instrument presents acceptable convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. These also suggest that the measurement instrument presents acceptable predictive validity. Finally, these results above suggest that the measurement instrument is free from model-wide collinearity and that common method variance does not have a significant biasing effect in the analysis.

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Kock, N., Moqbel, M., Jung, Y. et al. Do older programmers perform as well as young ones? Exploring the intermediate effects of stress and programming experience. Cogn Tech Work 20, 489–504 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-018-0479-x

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