Over the past 20 years, the field of computer science has experienced a growth in student interest. Despite this increase in participation rates, longstanding gender gaps persist in computer science. Recent research has examined a wide variety of individual factors (e.g., self-efficacy, sense of belonging, etc.) that impact student interest and achievement in computer science; however, these factors are rarely considered in the context of existing learning theories. In this correlational study, I explored the relationship between prior knowledge of computer programming, self-efficacy, and the sources of self-efficacy as they differed by gender in a theoretical model of achievement and interest for students in first-year computer science (CS1)courses. This model was based on prior work from Bandura (1997) and others exploring self-efficacy and social cognitive theory in the context of mathematics and science fields. Using cross-sectional data from N=182 CS1 students at two universities, structural regressions were conducted between factors impacting CS1 students across the entire population and for men(N=108) and women (N=70) individually. This data was then used to address the following research questions. (1A) How do prior knowledge of computer programming, the sources of self-efficacy, and self-efficacy for computing predict CS1 achievement and student intentions to continue study in CS? (1B) How does self-efficacy mediate the relationship between student prior knowledge of computer programming and achievement in CS1? (1C) How are those relationships moderated by gender? (2) How does feedback in the form of student grades impact intention to continue in CS when considering gender as a moderating factor? For all students, student self-efficacy for CS positively impacted CS1 achievement and post-CS1 interest. Aligning with past research, self-efficacy was derived largely from mastery experiences, with vicarious experiences and social persuasions also contributing to a moderate degree. Social persuasions had a negative effect on self-efficacy, which diverged from research in other fields. The relationship between prior knowledge of computer programming and CS1 achievement was not mediated by self-efficacy and had a small positive effect. For women, vicarious experiences played a stronger role in defining student self-efficacy in CS. Additionally, while the importance of self-efficacy on achievement was similar to that for men, self-efficacy and achievement both played a much stronger role in determining student interest in CS for women. All these findings are in need of further exploration as the analysis was underpowered due to a small, COVID-19impacted sample size. Future work should focus on the role of feedback on student self-efficacy, the potential misalignment of CS1 feedback and social network feedback, and interventions that address student beliefs about CS abilities to increase opportunities for authentic mastery and vicarious experiences.
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