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Open-Ended Exercises in CS1: The Impact on Female, Non-Major and Inexperienced Computer Science Students

Published:15 June 2020Publication History

ABSTRACT

Introductory Computer Science (CS1) is difficult for many (the course is notorious for its low student performance and retention rates), but some groups of students are especially disadvantaged such as female students (as CS is largely male-dominated), non-CS majors and students without prior programming experience. This poster discusses an attempt at engaging these disadvantaged subgroups through creative, open-ended exercises. Data was collected from a CS1 course with 284 students, where roughly half of the students completed exercises which included an open-ended aspect that allowed them to make their own decisions about their projects. The other half completed similar exercises but with a specifically defined, closed-ended checklist of requirements. The data analysis revealed several patterns that suggest the use of open-ended exercises can lead to higher levels of satisfaction and confidence among the different groups of traditionally disadvantaged students.

References

  1. John M Keller. 1987. Development and use of the ARCS model of instructional design. Journal of instructional development 10, 3 (1987), 2.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  2. Nicole Loorbach, Oscar Peters, Joyce Karreman, and Michaël Steehouder. 2015. Validation of the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) in a self-directed instructional setting aimed at working with technology. British journal of educational technology 46, 1 (2015), 204--218.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. Daniel Zingaro. 2014. Peer instruction contributes to self-efficacy in CS1. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education. 373--378.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

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  1. Open-Ended Exercises in CS1: The Impact on Female, Non-Major and Inexperienced Computer Science Students

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  • Published in

    cover image ACM Conferences
    ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
    June 2020
    615 pages
    ISBN:9781450368742
    DOI:10.1145/3341525

    Copyright © 2020 Owner/Author

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    • Published: 15 June 2020

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    Overall Acceptance Rate552of1,613submissions,34%

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    ITiCSE 2024

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