Attitudes and self-efficacy in young adults´ computing autobiographies

Little is known about the formation of people´s first perceptions about computers and computer code, yet it is likely that these impressions have a lasting effect on peoples´ use of technology in their lives and careers. Brief autobiographical essays about these first impressions were solicited from a diverse population of young adults and these essays were analyzed for factors that contributed to positive and negative attitudes about technology, formation of self-efficacy, and authors´ relationship with computing later in life. The results suggest that first encounters with code must be accessible, error-tolerant and socially engaging, that mentorship can be a crucial factor in the acquisition of programming skills, and that cultivating positive self-efficacy in programming skills requires repeated positive exposure across the lifespan. These results raise several issues for novice programming languages and tools and suggest a number of new approaches to computing education.