Investigating students´ confidence in programming and problem solving

Many students feel insecure making their first attempts to solve programming problems. Despite finishing the introductory programming course successfully, these students refrain from pursuing their CS studies. Hence, this aversion towards problem solving and programming is not fully explained by lack of subject understanding and performance. In order to better understand the components of students´ comfort, a first attempt to model a student´s confidence regarding problem solving and programming has been made. The model consists of two dimensions: course topic and student´s mindset. Two questionnaires have been developed in order to capture if and how students´ confidence is affected by taking the CS1 course. Data has been collected for four course offerings with three different study programmes. Results confirm the suspicion that the confidence is lowered by the course, and that student groups with different ambition and motivation for taking the course seem to be affected by different aspects of the course