What do beginning CS majors know?
Pedroni, Michela, Bertrand Meyer, Manuel Oriol · Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) · 2009
The standard “Introduction to Programming” or “CS1” course traditionally assumes that it will be, for most students, the first serious exposure to programming. For the past six years, we have queried our students, in the first weeks of class, about what they know. Results are compelling: virtually all beginning CS studentshave used computers for over two years, and many for ten years or more; on average, they know at least one programming language in depth; many have written significant systems. These and other measures of prior knowledge have been stable over the query period. This article analyzes both the results obtained and their pedagogical implications for courses and textbooks.