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Assessment of the effectiveness of instructional technology in the CS introductory programming classes

Many students with widely varying backgrounds are required to take an introductory programming course in computer science (CS). Mississippi State University has three courses in introductory programming that reach these concepts and differ only in the programming language that they use. Currently these courses are taught in a lecture only format with programming assignments required as part of the students' grades. Many of these introductory programming students struggle with the concepts in these classes. The wide availability of the World Wide Web to these students provides us with an opportunity to develop supplemental course material for these students to help demonstrate the basic concepts, and advance the students' capabilities in developing computer programs to solve a variety of problems. This paper discusses an experiment undertaken to determine the effectiveness of such Web based instructional material and asynchronous learning activities on student performance in an introductory programming class.