research-article

Impact of Open-Ended Assignments on Student Self-Efficacy in CS1

Authors:

Daniel Zingaro,

Clare BrettAuthors Info & Claims

CompEd '19: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education

Pages 215 - 221

https://doi.org/10.1145/3300115.3309532

Published: 09 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

A goal of many Computer Science Education (CSE) researchers is reconceptualizing aspects of introductory Computer Science (CS1) to increase student engagement and retention. The measure of self-efficacy, or one's personal judgment about their ability to accomplish a task, is a valuable component of student learning as it affects one's level of effort and perseverance against obstacles. A potential way to restructure aspects of CS1 to increase self-efficacy is by allowing students to have more room for freedom/experimentation within assignments. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of a specific, open-ended assignment structure on self-efficacy and academic performance, through a quasi-experimental study involving undergraduate CS1 students. Two concurrent lecture sections (Section A and B) with the same instructor were given two different versions of an assignment --- (1) a control version with a typical, standard structure, and (2) an open-ended version with an additional requirement to add enhancements of the student's own choosing to the project. For assignment 1, Section A completed the control assignment, while Section B completed the open-ended assignment. For assignment 2, to counterbalance the groups, Section B completed the control assignment while Section A completed the open-ended one. We found both average self-efficacy and average assignment grades were consistently (although not significantly) higher for students who completed the open-ended versions, and that self-efficacy significantly affected the average grade of both assignments, regardless of the type of assignment structure.

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Cited By

Cetin Uzun GMargulieux LLiao YStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)Programming Self-Efficacy in CS: Adding Four Areas of Validity to the Steinhorst InstrumentProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701813(213-219)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701813
Joshi IBudhiraja RDev HKadia JAtaullah MMitra SAkolekar HKumar DStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)ChatGPT in the Classroom: An Analysis of Its Strengths and Weaknesses for Solving Undergraduate Computer Science QuestionsProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630803(625-631)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630803
Campbell OAdelakun-Adeyemo OAkinrinola FChewachong Akih PTshukudu EBecker BChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)The Impacts of a Constructionist Scratch Programming Pedagogy on Student Achievement with a Focus on GenderProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617911(29-35)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617911
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Impact of Open-Ended Assignments on Student Self-Efficacy in CS1
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        CS1

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CompEd '19: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education

May 2019

260 pages

ISBN:9781450362597

DOI:10.1145/3300115

General Chairs:
Ming Zhang
Peking University, China
,
Bo Yang
Linyi University, China
,
Program Chairs:
Steve Cooper
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Andrew Luxton-Reilly
University of Auckland, New Zealand

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 09 May 2019

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CompEd '19: ACM Global Computing Education Conference 2019

May 9 - 19, 2019

Chengdu,Sichuan, China

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CompEd '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 33 of 100 submissions, 33%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 33 of 100 submissions, 33%

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Cited By

Cetin Uzun GMargulieux LLiao YStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)Programming Self-Efficacy in CS: Adding Four Areas of Validity to the Steinhorst InstrumentProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701813(213-219)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701813
Joshi IBudhiraja RDev HKadia JAtaullah MMitra SAkolekar HKumar DStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)ChatGPT in the Classroom: An Analysis of Its Strengths and Weaknesses for Solving Undergraduate Computer Science QuestionsProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630803(625-631)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630803
Campbell OAdelakun-Adeyemo OAkinrinola FChewachong Akih PTshukudu EBecker BChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)The Impacts of a Constructionist Scratch Programming Pedagogy on Student Achievement with a Focus on GenderProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617911(29-35)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617911
Nelson-Fromm T(2023)Open-Ended Assignments for Teaching Contextualized ComputingProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 210.1145/3568812.3603445(76-78)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568812.3603445
Oleson AXie BSalac JEverson JKivuva FKo A(2022)A Decade of Demographics in Computing Education Research: A Critical Review of Trends in Collection, Reporting, and UseProceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3501385.3543967(323-343)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501385.3543967
Morrison BQuinn BBradley SBuffardi KHarrington BHu HKallia MMcNeill FOla OParker MRosato JWaite JKrogstie BQuille KSchulte CBecker B(2021)Evidence for Teaching Practices that Broaden Participation for Women in ComputingProceedings of the 2021 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3502870.3506568(57-131)Online publication date: 28-Dec-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502870.3506568
Lishinski AYadav A(2021)Self-evaluation Interventions: Impact on Self-efficacy and Performance in Introductory ProgrammingACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/344737821:3(1-28)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3447378

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