Failure rates in introductory programming

F many years, it has been a common conception that CS1 is difficult to teach and learn, and that failure rates in CS1 are high. Until 2007, this claim was primarily anecdotal. In 2007 we published a paper on failure rates in CS1 and found an average failure rate of 33%. Now, more than ten years after, we have replicated our study with close to three times as many respondents. With an average failure rate in 2017 of 28%, it seems that the state of affairs is improving; and compared to 42-50% failure rates for college algebra in the US, an average CS1 failure rate of 28% does not seem alarmingly high.