WIP: An exploration into the muddiest points and self-efficacy of students in introductory computer science courses

Abstract

This work-in-progress (WIP) paper in the research track explored the muddiest point and self-efficacy for students in introductory computer science courses, starting with one course at a southern public institution. With the increasing demand in computing-related careers, the increased enrollments in undergraduate computer science courses are facing challenges to ensure the average passing rate. In this work, we applied the muddiest point to capture student’s perceptions of concepts of difficulty and used self-efficacy to better contextualize students’ perfections of self-efficacy in relation to concepts of difficulty. In this paper we present the results of one section of one introductory computing course, that revealed the perceived difficult topics as well as changes in self-efficacy throughout the semester. Furthermore, a positive correlation was found between self-efficacy and performance. Keywords: self-efficacy, muddiest points, student performance, computer science education