Test construction and administration strategies for large introductory courses

  • Authors:

  • Stewart A. Denenberg

  • Affiliations:

  • Associate Professor, Computer Science, SUNY Plattsburgh

  • Venue:
  • SIGCSE '81 Proceedings of the twelfth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 1981

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Large introductory courses in computer science make test construction and administration a particularly difficult problem for the instructor. Multiple-choice computer-graded tests can be used to alleviate this problem by testing not only in the knowledge areas of history, hardware, software and applications but in the area of programming skills as well. Several illustrations of the type of multiple-choice question that can be used to test the skills of 1) Reading a Flowchart 2) Reading a Program 3) Converting a Flowchart to a Program and 4) Writing a Program are given and are discussed in terms of their effectiveness. Practical issues of test administration such as the pre-plan, open vs closed-book, cheating and grading are also discussed. The paper attempts to mildly formalize a shadowy area of computer science that has heretofore existed primarily as folklore and hearsay.