Using alice in CS1: a quantitative experiment

Authors:
Ryan Garlick;Ebru Celikel Cankaya
Affiliations:
University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA;University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the fifteenth annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We present the results of a 2-semester study of using the 3-D graphical programming environment Alice to introduce programming fundamentals during the first two weeks of CS1. One cohort of students was taught basic programming constructs via traditional pseudocode, while a second group used Alice. A student survey was collected, along with performance metrics on a common quiz and first exam. Students using Alice scored lower than those taught with pseudocode on common performance metrics and responded less-favorably to Alice in a survey. Anecdotal evidence of using Alice with younger students was more positive.