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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 self-efficacy, 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.