The Effect of Computer Programming Education on the Reasoning Skills of High School Students

The goal of this study was to determine if high school students learning computer programming would demonstrate improved reasoning skills. To test this, sixty 11 and 12 grade students were sampled from a high school population and half of these students were treated with one semester (75 hours) of computer programming instruction while the other half was not. After treatment, both groups were given a standardized reasoning skills inventory that covered deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, credibility and observational reasoning, reasoning about assumptions, and reasoning about meaning. Results were mixed, but did reveal higher mean scores in the experimental group than the control group in terms of overall and most specific areas of reasoning. In particular, deductive and credibility reasoning showed the most promise in terms of being improved by learning computer programming.