The challenge of learning to program: motivation and achievement emotions in an extreme apprenticeship experience

The importance of the education in informatics, also in non-vocational curricula, was recognized in the Italian school system many years ago. The introduction of the new discipline in a complex and articulated educational organization is still a work in development and its implementation may differ a lot across schools. Hence, computing background of bachelor students is really diverse. The teacher in this situation has to manage very different levels of skills and students often have to cope with failures and frustration. So, also motivation and emotions could have a role in determining performance. In this work, we present an early stage analysis of the connection between motivation, emotions and performance in initial learning of programming for bachelor students in Applied Mathematics in Verona. Performance in programming correlated positively with believes on control and negatively with anger and hopelessness. This finding supports the relevance of intervention programs promoting efficient motivational strategies and a positive emotional climate during learning of programming.