Academic Help Seeking Patterns in Introductory Computer Science Courses.

This paper explores the utilization of help-seeking resources in two computer science courses across two semesters, taken at the same university: a CS1 for Engineering majors (n = 326) and a CS2 for Computer Science majors and minors (n = 238). Asking, receiving and processing academic help is considered an important self-regulated learning skill. The help-seeking interactions faculty encounter will vary depending upon the course structure and the student demographics. Our goal in this study is to explore differences to determine whether or not patterns exist in how students are seeking help. First, we group students based on their usage of an online discussion forum and their frequency of attending office hours. Next, we describe these help-seeking groups using prior programming experience, course performance and the students' confidence in their computing skills. Our results match expectations with help-seeking; students who participate on the course discussion forum tend to perform better than students who do not and students with low confidence in computer science skills in the CS2 class attend office hours more frequently. Practitioners can utilize these findings to make decisions about how to structure the help provided in their courses and determine ways to support students that need more help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]