The Influence of Digital Self-Efficacy on Students’ Learning Outcomes in a Programming Course

Abstract

This study examines the role of digital self-efficacy (DSE) in students’ learning outcomes in a programming course. An eight-week programming course with a modular instructional design was conducted with a total of 53 students. The aim of this course is to facilitate students’ data analysis skills by learning programming concepts. Before the class, students were divided into high and low-DSE groups based on a questionnaire (denoted as HDSE and LDSE, respectively). Pre-test and post-tests were administered, and ANCOVA was used to examine the interaction between DSE and learning outcomes while controlling for prior knowledge. The results show that students in the HDSE group achieved significantly better learning outcomes than those in the LDSE group, even after controlling for pre-test scores. Epistemic Network Analysis in three-dimensional space (ENA 3D) further revealed that students in the HDSE group constructed more integrated cognitive structures, characterized by stronger connections between programming concepts, which aligned with the course’s final challenge of integrating multiple programming modules into a data analysis solution. In contrast, students in the LDSE group exhibited more fragmented conceptual networks, with fewer and weaker connections across course modules.