Self-efficacy and mental models in learning to program
Proceedings of the 9th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
A multi-national study of reading and tracing skills in novice programmers
Working group reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Why students drop out CS1 course?
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Computing education research
CS1 students speak: advice for students by students
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Empirical evidence for the existence and uses of metacognition in computer science problem solving
Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Student and faculty inter-generational digital divide: Fact or fiction?
Computers & Education
Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Deciding to major in computer science: a grounded theory of students' self-assessment of ability
Proceedings of the seventh international workshop on Computing education research
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While some students excel in introductory programming courses, others find the course to be significantly challenging and demanding. The way that students reason about the factors that contribute to success or failure may affect their self-efficacy, motivation, future success and whether or not they persist in Computer Science (CS). What factors do students' perceive to cause successful or unsuccessful learning outcomes in first-year programming assignments? Such findings can assist us in identifying causal reasoning that may be detrimental to future success and persistence. We use Attribution Theory (AT) as a framework to explore the "causal attributions" that students apply to explain their causes for success or failure in introductory programming assignments, alluded to in their reflective essays about performance in a course. Our research demonstrates that reflective essays, integrated into learning tasks, can be one effective and efficient way to extract students' casual attributions. Our results indicate that the students raised a number of causal attributions in their essays that were specific to the CS-context and were attributed to both internal and external causes. We highlight problematic areas of casual reasoning and a need to correct misleading reasoning to ensure CS students understand their control over the success of their future programming assignments. This research offers opportunities for future research to develop activities that may encourage students to correctly identify causes of performance outcomes in programming assignments and to determine if such interventions can prevent students from leaving CS.