TY - JOUR

T1 - Student experiences in a university preparatory programming course

AU - Spikol, Daniel

AU - Dybdal, Martin

AU - Elmeskov, Dorte C.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 Spikol, Dybdal and Elmeskov.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Even though computer science is currently being integrated into primary and secondary education worldwide, we cannot yet make assumptions about our student's prior knowledge of computing. Every student might have different conceptions about the field of study they are about to enter. Students start at computer science programs with different prior experiences with programming, ranging from no experience to a high degree of proficiency. At the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, we have designed a 2-week voluntary summer kickstart course in programming to help students in this transition into our three computer science programs. To evaluate the course, we followed three groups of students. Group one with no/limited programming experience attended the kickstart course. The second group with no/little programming experience did not participate in the course, and the third group of students with programming experience did not participate in the class. We observed the kickstart course and conducted interviews. We followed up about 3 weeks after the start of the semester and then again at the end of the semester in December. Our findings suggest that the course reduces the gap in programming experiences and strengthens students' self-efficacy and sense of belonging. However, the approach creates a social gap between students who have not attended the course with no/limited experience at the beginning of the semester. Even though the students in December do not experience any difference between students who have attended the course and those who have not, it is important to consider this social gap at the beginning of the semester when designing and planning a preparatory course like the kickstart course.

AB - Even though computer science is currently being integrated into primary and secondary education worldwide, we cannot yet make assumptions about our student's prior knowledge of computing. Every student might have different conceptions about the field of study they are about to enter. Students start at computer science programs with different prior experiences with programming, ranging from no experience to a high degree of proficiency. At the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, we have designed a 2-week voluntary summer kickstart course in programming to help students in this transition into our three computer science programs. To evaluate the course, we followed three groups of students. Group one with no/limited programming experience attended the kickstart course. The second group with no/little programming experience did not participate in the course, and the third group of students with programming experience did not participate in the class. We observed the kickstart course and conducted interviews. We followed up about 3 weeks after the start of the semester and then again at the end of the semester in December. Our findings suggest that the course reduces the gap in programming experiences and strengthens students' self-efficacy and sense of belonging. However, the approach creates a social gap between students who have not attended the course with no/limited experience at the beginning of the semester. Even though the students in December do not experience any difference between students who have attended the course and those who have not, it is important to consider this social gap at the beginning of the semester when designing and planning a preparatory course like the kickstart course.

KW - computer science education

KW - Cs0 and Cs1 learners

KW - development/boot camp

KW - education design research

KW - pedagogical approaches

KW - problem-based learning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145064398&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3389/fcomp.2022.983237

DO - 10.3389/fcomp.2022.983237

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85145064398

VL - 4

JO - Frontiers in Computer Science

JF - Frontiers in Computer Science

SN - 2624-9898

M1 - 983237

ER -