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Incentivized Spacing and Gender in Computer Science Education

Extensive prior research shows that spacing – the distribution of studying over multiple sessions – significantly improves long-term learning in many disciplines. However, in computer science education, it is unclear if 1) spacing is effective in an incentivized, non-imposed setting and 2) when incentivized, female and male students space their studying differently. To investigate these research questions, we examined how students in an introductory computer science course (378 female and 310 male) spaced their studying. A retrieval practice tool in the course (for 5% of the course grade) incentivized students to space their studying, by awarding a point per day of usage. To measure how much each student spaced, we examined their interactions with the course eBook, which served as their primary learning resource. Specifically, when comparing two students with the same academic and demographic characteristics, the same measure of course easiness, and the same amount of content studied, we considered the student who distributed their studying over more days to be the one who spaced more. Using this definition, our structural equation modeling (SEM) results show that, 1) on average, students who spaced their studying over 14.516 more days (one standard deviation) got 2.25% higher final exam scores; and 2) female students spaced their studying over 4.331 more days than their male counterparts. These results suggest that, in an introductory computer science course, incentivized spacing is effective. Notably, when compared to their male counterparts, female students both exhibited more spacing and obtained higher final exam scores through spacing.