Programming Student Success

Student success in computer programming courses has been a long-studied problem and computer science major retention has historically been substantially lower than other majors. The issue of retention for computer science majors has become more pronounced in two-year, open-enrollment institutions. This quantitative study, grounded in Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, attempted to address some of the causes of poor retention for entry-level computer science majors at two-year colleges by looking for predictors of student success in their first computer programming course. Logical-Mathematical and Visual-Spatial, were used along with two factors: student success in previous mathematics courses and the student's own perception of his or her programming skill.