Novice Learners of Programming and Generative AI - Prior Knowledge Matters

With the broad availability of Generative AI (GenAI), introductory programming education is starting to change. At Nuremberg Tech, we observed the doubling of failure rates to approximately 50% in the first semester course “Procedural Programming” across students of all study programs. Due to these exam results in winter 2023/24, we conducted a pilot study to gather students’ use of GenAI tools, their exam results, and prior programming education and experience. The results imply significant differences of students’ use of GenAI tools depending on their prior programming education. We will therefore extend the investigation in winter term 2024/25.