CS1 students speak: advice for students by students

ABSTRACT

We collected advice on how to succeed at learning to program from 164 CS1 students at 3 institutions during a "saying is believing" intervention designed to encourage a growth mindset. More students gave general advice (63%) than programming-specific (23%) or attitudinal advice (34%), despite being prompted to encourage future students to develop a growth mindset toward programming. Advice categories and quotes offer educators insights into student beliefs and practices and suggest a framework for considering how best to advise students. We discuss the implications of students offering advice to other students and provide a handout of representative advice intended for distribution to students in introductory programming courses.

REFERENCES

• 1: J. Aronson, C. Fried, and C. Good. Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(2):113--125, 2002.
• 2: Susan Bergin , Ronan Reilly , Desmond Traynor, Examining the role of self-regulated learning on introductory programming performance, Proceedings of the first international workshop on Computing education research, p.81-86, October 01-02, 2005, Seattle, WA, USA [doi>10.1145/1089786.1089794]
• 3: J. Corbin and A. Strauss. Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative Sociology, 13(1):3--21, 1990.
• 4: C. S. Dweck. Self-Theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Taylor & Francis, 1999.
• 5: Päivi Kinnunen , Robert McCartney , Laurie Murphy , Lynda Thomas, Through the eyes of instructors: a phenomenographic investigation of student success, Proceedings of the third international workshop on Computing education research, September 15-16, 2007, Atlanta, Georgia, USA [doi>10.1145/1288580.1288589]
• 6: Robert McCartney , Anna Eckerdal , Jan Erik Mostrom , Kate Sanders , Carol Zander, Successful students' strategies for getting unstuck, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, v.39 n.3, September 2007
• 7: Laurie Murphy , Lynda Thomas, Dangers of a fixed mindset: implications of self-theories research for computer science education, Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, June 30-July 02, 2008, Madrid, Spain
• 8: D. N. Perkins, C. Hancock, R. Hobbs, F. Martin, and R. Simmons. Conditions of Learning in Novice Programmers. In E. Soloway and J. C. Spohrer, editors, Studying the Novice Programmer, pages 261--279. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986.
• 9: Beth Simon , Brian Hanks , Laurie Murphy , Sue Fitzgerald , Renée McCauley , Lynda Thomas , Carol Zander, Saying isn't necessarily believing: influencing self-theories in computing, Proceeding of the fourth international workshop on Computing education research, p.173-184, September 06-07, 2008, Sydney, Australia [doi>10.1145/1404520.1404537]
• 10: Susan Wiedenbeck, Factors affecting the success of non-majors in learning to program, Proceedings of the first international workshop on Computing education research, p.13-24, October 01-02, 2005, Seattle, WA, USA [doi>10.1145/1089786.1089788]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
advice, attitudes, mindsets, self-theories, success factors