Study of instructional modalities for introductory computing

The School of Engineering at Vanderbilt University requires all engineering students in their first semester to take a course that introduces computers in engineering. Two questions arise: is the best setting in which to teach this type of material either a combination of lecture and laboratory or all-laboratory; and does a student-owned laptop computer contribute more to learning? For two years the course was organized with these two different modalities of instruction. For a third year the students learned in the all-laboratory environment and 30% of the students used their own laptop computer. At the end of the semester an in-depth questionnaire with quantitative ratings was given to the students to determine if there were differences in learning preferences. Contingency tables were used to compare responses. There were several statistically significant differences in student responses favoring the all laboratory structure and students using laptop computers. Several of them are: the students are much more comfortable with computers at the end of the semester; either laboratory or working by oneself were the preferred settings for learning; and lecture was not a preferred setting for learning any topic.