Impact of Alternative Introductory Courses on Programming Concept Understanding

摘要

Computer science has long debated what to teach in thernintroductory course of the discipline, and leaders in our fieldrnhave argued that the introductory course approach is critical tornstudent development. We investigated the impact ofrnalternative approaches to introductory computing byrnconsidering the questions of what students bring to theirrnsecond class in computing and how the outcomes differrndepending on the students’ alternative first course. Our studyrnshowed significant differences in understanding ofrnintroductory concepts, such as iteration, conditionals, andrnarrays, at the beginning of the second course. However, by thernend of the second course their understanding had converged.