PPIG 2005 - 17th Annual Workshop
The influence of motivation and comfort-level on learning to program
Susan Bergin, Ronan Reilly
Abstract: This paper documents a study, carried out in the academic year 2004- 2005, on the role of motivation and comfort-level in a first year object-oriented programming module. The study found that intrinsic motivation had a strong correlation with programming performance as did self-efficacy for learning and performance, r=0.512, p < 0.01 and r=0.567, p < 0.01 respectively. Aspects of comfort level were found to have significant correlations with performance with an instrument on programming-esteem rendering the most interesting results. A regression model based upon these factors was able to account for 60% of the variance in programming performance results.