Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

(GE) and freshmen CS and Lyceum (GR). Table 3 summarizes
the significant results from the Games-Howell post hoc test.
Table 3. Games-Howell post hoc test
Freshmen CS
Gymnasium (GE) PE*, STF*, SI*, BI*
Lyceum (GR) PE*, STF*, SI*, BI*, CDS*
* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
5. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Looking at Figure 2, we can easily notice that the scores of the
Greek and German secondary education students are generally on
the same levels. Additionally, our Games-Howell test showed that
there is no significant difference in the perceptions of Greek and
German secondary education students.
On the other hand, compared to the school students, the Greek
higher education students had significantly higher scores in 4
(compared to German Gymnasium) respectively 5 (compared to
Lyceum) variables. Nevertheless, there are 3 factors, where is no
significant difference (SEF, CPS and C(CL)C). Notably, it seems
that these factors ranged on the same levels although CS freshmen
have more exposure on CS and Programming. This can be possibly
based to the fact that in secondary education educators are
using learner friendly environment (e.g. BlueJ, Alice or Scratch);
and these environments increasing students’ self-efficacy and
confidence regarding a CS and Programming [1, 8]. However, for
the case of data structures (CDS) we identified a significant difference
among the students of Lyceum (GR) and the CS freshmen,
as the latter look more confident for data structures.
The most astonishing result is the dramatic (relative) drop in Self-
Efficacy (SEF), which might indicate that those “future CS professionals”
are not as self-confident regarding their programming
abilities, as one would expect at the first glance, as this is the only
factor indicating a lower level or the CS freshmen, although this
difference is not significant, too. It might be due to the fact that
CS freshmen had to deal with substantially more demanding
problems that they found as hard to solve as the school students
found their more easy ones. In contrast, PE, SI and STF are also
indicating significance differences among the CS freshmen and
the secondary education students. This may be possible explained
to the wide enrolment and familiarity of freshmen with CS and
programming and shows that they are quite content with their
choice of career.
The most significant difference among the two courses is indicated
in students’ BI. This seems plausible, as the freshmen had
chosen their career at this point of time and regarded themselves
as specialists already.
As with any empirical study, there are some limitations. First, in
this study the respondents are Greek and German students, who
had attended the respective educational systems; this may limit
the extend of the generalization of the findings. However, this
study is one of the few so far which combines empirical data from
students’ beliefs in a cross-cultural framework; as such these
findings are expected to shed light on that direction. Secondly, the
data are based on self-reported method, other methods such as
depth interviews and observations could provide a complimentary
picture of the findings through data triangulation. Despite these
limitations, the findings of this study generate valuable insights,
which can be used as part of hypotheses for representative followup
studies in students’ beliefs for CS education and in cross-
country and cultural contexts of CS education research.
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