GUI-Based vs. Text-Based Assignments in CS1

Teaching CS1 can be daunting. The first courses in the CS curriculum help determine which students will ultimately matriculate into the program. There have been various studies on how to improve motivation and reduce attrition by using visual-based environments and assignments. We performed a year-long study in which we addressed two research questions: 1) How is student performance affected by drag-and-drop GUI assignments when compared to traditional text-based assignments? 2) If given the choice, would students select GUI-based or text-based assignments? For the first question, there was no statistical significance, indicating that student performance is not affected by this visual component. For the second question, we discovered more students selected the text-based assignments over the GUI-assignments. Separating the students into groups based on what they chose revealed that the students that selected the GUI-assignments scored on average one letter grade higher, enjoyed the assignments more and spent less time on the assignments. We recorded the reported motivations behind why students chose to do the GUI-based assignments versus the text-based assignments: Overall, the GUI Group's responses trended toward self-improvement (e.g. more like the real world, improve skills, more challenging) while the Text Group's responses trended toward ease (e.g. easier/simpler, save time). Lastly, at the end of each course we asked the students if, given the hypothetical case in which they were not pressed for time, they would create the Java application with or without a GUI? 93% of the students responded that they would create a GUI Java application.