Impact of Open-Ended Assignments on Student Self-Efficacy in CS1

A goal of many Computer Science Education (CSE) researchers is reconceptualizing aspects of introductory Computer Science (CS1) to increase student engagement and retention. The measure of selfefficacy, or one's personal judgment about their ability to accomplish a task, is a valuable component of student learning as it affects one's level of effort and perseverance against obstacles. A potential way to restructure aspects of CS1 to increase self-efficacy is by allowing students to have more room for freedom/experimentation within assignments. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of a specific, open-ended assignment structure on self-efficacy and academic performance, through a quasi-experimental study involving undergraduate CS1 students. Two concurrent lecture sections (Section A and B) with the same instructor were given two different versions of an assignment - (1) a control version with a typical, standard structure, and (2) an open-ended version with an additional requirement to add enhancements of the student's own choosing to the project. For assignment 1, Section A completed the control assignment, while Section B completed the open-ended assignment. For assignment 2, to counterbalance the groups, Section B completed the control assignment while Section A completed the open-ended one. We found both average self-efficacy and average assignment grades were consistently (although not significantly) higher for students who completed the open-ended versions, and that self-efficacy significantly affected the average grade of both assignments, regardless of the type of assignment structure.