A comparison of CS student backgrounds at two universities

Abstract

It is difficult to think of another field that, at the outset of the studies, has to face heterogeneity in prior experience similar to what CS1 instructors handle. This student diversity in Computer Science seems to be a global phenomenon. The present work investigates to what extent the student backgrounds concerning prior programming and computing experience are similar both at ETH Zurich, Switzerland and at University of York, United Kingdom. The results are surprising: there exist no significant differences between the entering CS majors at the two institutions with respect to their prior programming expertise, computing literacy and number of languages that they know. The only differences that proved significant were in the specific programming languages with which students had worked before entering the university.