A CS1 Spatial Skills Intervention and the Impact on Introductory Programming Abilities

Authors

• Ryan Bockmon, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• Stephen Cooper, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• William Koperski, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• Jonathan Gratch, Texas Woman’s University, DentonFollow
• Sheryl Sorby, University of CincinnatiFollow
• Mohsen Dorodchi, University of North Carolina at CharlotteFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2020

Citation

SIGCSE ’20, March 11–14, 2020, Portland, OR, USA

https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366829

Comments

2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s)

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of replicating and extending a study performed by Cooper et al. examining the relationship between students’ spatial skills and their success in learning to program. Whereas Cooper et al. worked with high school students participat- ing in a summer program, we worked with college students taking an introductory computing course. Like Cooper et al.’s study, we saw a correlation between a student’s spatial skills and their success in learning computing. More significantly, we saw that after apply- ing an intervention to teach spatial skills, students demonstrated improved performance both on a standard spatial skills assessment as well as on a CS content instrument. We also saw a correlation between students’ enjoyment in computing and improved perfor- mance both on a standard spatial skills assessment and on a CS content instrument, a result not observed by Cooper et al.