Assessment of self-regulated attitudes and behaviors of introductory programming students

Great emphasis has been given to the cognitive and methodological aspects of learning and teaching programming. Nevertheless, research shows a significant correlation between student self-regulation and academic achievement in higher education. The Attitudes and Study Behaviors Inventory (IACHE) is a multidimensional inventory that integrates in its design behavioral, affective-motivational and cognitive aspects of learning. This paper presents the results obtained from the application of the IACHE inventory to 190 introductory programming students from Brazil and Portugal. Data suggests that Brazilian and Portuguese students have very similar attitudes and behaviors regarding learning strategy, self-efficacy perception and study activities´ organization, which seems to suggest that the same type of students choose undergraduate computing programs in both countries.