Using a Groupware System in CS1 to Engage Introverted Students

摘要

Concern with declining numbers of computer science majors leads educators to examine recruitment and retention factors in Computer Science I (CS1), in order to increase the number of students entering the undergraduate computer science pipeline. The literature reveals that introverted students dominate the CS1 classroom at a rate more than twice that of the general population and that the students perform better in the course as a group than extraverts do. Therefore, increasing the comfort level and engagement of introverted students seems practical - as well as thoughtful. The author of this paper hypothesizes that encouraging students to use an anonymous submission feature in a groupware system will increase the comfort of shy students who are reluctant to engage in the CS1 classroom. A study reveals a significant difference between a group of students who used the same groupware system without instruction regarding the groupware system's anonymous feature and a treatment group of students who received instruction and were encouraged to use the anonymous feature. The project also uncovers several significant correlations among students' responses to various items in the survey instrument.