A CS0 course using Scratch
Mona El-Kadi Rizvi, Thorna Humphries, Debra A. Major, Meghan P. Jones, Heather M. Lauzun · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2011
Although computer science enrollment has increased in the freshman and sophomore levels over the past few years, computer science departments are still faced with retention issues, particularly if some of their majors have weak mathematics backgrounds and are placed directly in CS1. In this paper, a new CS0 course using Scratch is described, along with a study to determine the effectiveness of the CS0 course at improving the retention, performance and attitudes of at-risk majors. Initial assessments indicate that students who are programming using Scratch have a high degree of perceived self-efficacy with respect to their programming abilities. Furthermore, the midterm performance of the students who took the new CS0 course in Fall 2009 and are currently enrolled in CS1 exceeds that of students in previous years.