The Impact of Cognitive Bias on Students' Programming Performance in an Introduction to Programming Course

摘要

Cognitive biases are the primary source of errors in decision-making. These biases enable learners to make snap judgments, leading to errors. These biases usually result in incorrect decisions when students solve Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ) and Short-Answer Questions (SAQ) types of problems. Furthermore, each person's brain is unique with respect to cognitive processing; their perception capability and biases may vary when confronted with the same situation. Hence, it is critical to investigate learners' numerous biases. This article analyzes various types of biases, such as Anchor effect bias, Availability bias, Attention bias, Confirmation bias, and Framing effect bias when students are asked to solve MCQ and SAQ types of problems. Students' performance in an introductory course on programming is used to analyze the effect of cognitive biases on their performance. We recorded audio interviews with respondents to ascertain why they selected a particular option for a given question. Three experts manually classify the respondent's biases in response to a specific question using this audio clip.