Abstract:

Many students encounter programming for the first time during undergraduate studies. Programming, in general, is very different from other subjects typically taught in elementary and middle school (like mathematics, history, languages, etc.) and may be a source of anxiety and frustration for these students. It is known that many introductory computer science courses suffer from high dropout rates. It also is known that high anxiety can lead to decreased performance during testing. With all that in mind, the question is whether students experience higher test anxiety (a specific form of anxiety) during exams in introductory programming courses, when compared to their general test anxiety. The second question is whether those students that have had pre-university programming education exhibit lower test anxiety during programming exams, when compared to the ones that haven’t had any programming education. The third question is whether those students that drop out of the course differ from other students with regards to test anxiety and/or pre-university programming education. And finally, are there gender differences regarding the previous research questions. In order to answer these questions, a small research based on an undergraduate introductory programming course in the C language was conducted. The participants were 318 first year students, and this introductory course in C programming had been their first programming course during undergraduate studies. The students were asked to fill out two questionnaires: one at the beginning of the course (during labs, N = 318), and second just after finishing the midterm exam (N = 199 due to 119 participating students dropping out of the course before the midterm exam). This midterm exam was paper-based in order to avoid inducing computer anxiety in students (a form of anxiety related to computer usage), but nevertheless contained programming problems in C, not just theoretical questions. The first questionnaire contained items related to students’ general test anxiety and their pre-university programming education. The second questionnaire only contained items related to test anxiety experienced during the midterm exam. The Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) developed by Spielberger, was used in both questionnaires, with the questions being translated into students’ native language. The results suggest that female students were more test anxious than male students, both in general and during the midterm exam - which was expected. Unexpectedly (and without gender differences), all students exhibited lower test anxiety regarding the midterm exam (when compared to their general test anxiety), and their pre-university programming education was not related to midterm exam test anxiety. No differences regarding general test anxiety were found between students that dropped out of the course before the midterm exam (N = 119) and students that didn’t drop out (N = 199). However, male students that dropped out of the course before the midterm exam had significantly lesser pre-university programming education than male students that didn’t drop out.

Keywords:

Computer Science, Programming, Evaluation and Assessment, Test Anxiety, Higher Education.