Designing, implementing, and analyzing a placement test for introductory CS courses

Leen Kiat Son, Ashok Samal, Suzette Person, Gwen Nugent, Jeff Lang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

An introductory CS1 course presents problems for educators and students due to students' diverse background in programming knowledge and exposure. Students who enroll in CS1 also have different expectations and motivations. Prompted by the curricular guidelines for undergraduate programs in computer science released in 2001 by the ACM/IEEE, and driven by a departmental project to reinvent the undergraduate computer science and computer engineering curricula at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, we are currently implementing a series of changes which will improve our introductory courses. One key component of our project is an online placement examination tied to the cognitive domain that assesses student knowledge and intellectual skills. Our placement test is also integrated into a comprehensive educational research design containing a pre- and post-test framework for assessing student learning. In this paper, we focus on the design and implementation of our placement exam and present an analysis of the data collected to date.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005
Pages505-509
Number of pages5
StatePublished - 2005
EventProceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005 - St. Louis, MO, United States
Duration: Feb 23 2005Feb 27 2005

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005

Conference

ConferenceProceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySt. Louis, MO
Period2/23/052/27/05

Keywords

  • ACM Placement Examination
  • Bloom's Taxonomy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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