An Experimental Study of Cooperative Learning in CS1

An experiment was conducted to study the effectiveness of the cooperative learning approach to teaching CS1. The cooperative learning exercises, which used specific roles to focus students' attention on key concepts, were designed so they could be used in a variety of educational settings. Experimental results show that the benefits of cooperative learning clearly outweighed any possible losses due to reduced lecture time. These benefits were enjoyed by both male and female students, and by students from a variety of majors. Majority and minority students performed at approximately the same overall level when using the cooperative learning approach. There are indications that the educational benefits continue when students who had a cooperative learning experience in CS1 go onto CS2.