A meta-analysis was performed to synthesize existing data concerning the effects of computer programing on cognitive outcomes of students. Sixty-five studies were located from three sources, and their quantitative data were transformed into a common scale--Effect Size (ES). The analysis showed that 58 (89%) of the study-weighted ESs were positive and favored the computer programing group over the control groups, while seven (11%) of the study-weighted ESs were negative and favored the non-programing group. The overall grand mean of the study-weighted ESs for all 432 comparisons was 0.41, suggesting that students having computer programing experiences scored about 16 percentile points higher on various cognitive ability tests than did students who did not have programing experiences. In addition, 14 of the 28 coded variables selected for this study (e.g., type of publication, grade level, language studied, and duration of treatment) had a statistically significant impact on the mean study-weighted ES. The findings suggest that the outcomes of learning a computer language go beyond the content of that specific computer language. The results also illustrate a mildly effective approach for use by instructors for teaching cognitive skills in a classroom setting. Four tables and one graph illustrate the analysis. A 79-item list of references is included. (Author/SLD)