https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6572-4347
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ABSTRACT
Background and Context
Lopez and Lister first presented evidence for a skill hierarchy of code reading, tracing, and writing for introductory programming students. Further support for this hierarchy could help computer science educators sequence course content to best build student programming skill.
Objective
This study aims to replicate a slightly simplified hierarchy of skills in CS1 using a larger body of students (600+ vs. 38) in a non-major introductory Python course with computer-based exams. We also explore the validity of other possible hierarchies.
Method
We collected student score data on 4 kinds of exam questions. Structural equation modeling was used to derive the hierarchy for each exam.
Findings
We find multiple best-fitting structural models. The original hierarchy does not appear among the “best” candidates, but similar models do. We also determined that our methods provide us with correlations between skills and do not answer a more fundamental question: what is the ideal teaching order for these skills?
Implications
This modeling work is valuable for understanding the possible correlations between fundamental code-related skills. However, analyzing student performance on these skills at a moment in time is not sufficient to determine teaching order. We present possible study designs for exploring this more actionable research question.
Disclosure statement
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.
Notes
1. For simplicity of exposition, we maintain BIC over other selection methods, such as bootstrapping (Preacher & Merkle, Citation2012). Initial explorations with bootstrapping suggest the overall conclusions of our work would not change with another selection criteria.