Quantifying the Benefits of Prior Programming Experience in an Introductory Computer Science Course
Chris Wilcox, Albert Lionelle · 2018
The superior performance of students with prior exposure to programming has long been evident to faculty that teach introductory courses. In this paper we replicate previous studies that quantify the difference between students with and without previous programming experience, and we provide further focus on gender differences. Our research is based on an initial CS1 course that we divided into a section with students having previous programming experience (P) and two sections for students without (N). Both sections of CS1 were taught with the same curriculum and assessments. We find that the advantages of prior experience are substantial, with P students outscoring N students by more than 6% on exams and 10% on programming quizzes. However, the performance gap between P and N students narrows considerably by the end of the following CS2 course, with no significant difference in overall scores. Analyzing results by gender, our data shows that 22% of N students in CS1 are female versus only 12% of P students. However, the female students with prior exposure outperform their male peers in all areas. Another finding of our research is the confirmation of a significant difference in confidence between female and male students.