The Impact of Pre‐College Computer Exposure on Student Achievement in Introductory Computer Programming Courses

Abstract

A post‐treatment retention achievement examination was given to 160 students who had taken FORTRAN based introductory computer programming courses during the 1984‐1985 academic year at the Colorado School of Mines. The test was administered during the first week of the fall semester following the course. One of the objectives for this study was to determine to what extent exposure to computers prior to taking the introductory course would affect the student's performance on the retention test. Three different levels of pre‐college exposure ranging from a high school course to personal computer ownership were evaluated. The analyses showed that all three levels of pre‐college exposure to computers had a significant beneficial effect on student retention of the introductory computer programming material.