CS1 students speak: advice for students by students

ABSTRACT

We collected advice on how to succeed at learning to program from 164 CS1 students at 3 institutions during a "saying is believing" intervention designed to encourage a growth mindset. More students gave general advice (63%) than programming-specific (23%) or attitudinal advice (34%), despite being prompted to encourage future students to develop a growth mindset toward programming. Advice categories and quotes offer educators insights into student beliefs and practices and suggest a framework for considering how best to advise students. We discuss the implications of students offering advice to other students and provide a handout of representative advice intended for distribution to students in introductory programming courses.

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Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computing education programs

        • Computer science education