Assessing the Success of an Introductory Programming Course

Abstract

With universities having difficulty attracting stude nts to study information technology (IT), the scores needed for entry into IT degrees have dr opped markedly. IT schools are thus having to cope by adjusting their introductory courses to ensure that students will still learn what is ex- pected but without negatively impacting on pass rate s. This paper considers short objective tests, designed by other researchers, to examine whet her students who have passed an introductory course have achieved an unders tanding of fundamental concepts in programming. The Dehnadi test, which was originally designed to be ta ken before a programming course to predict who would be successful, proved to be useful in show ing that many students who had passed an intro- ductory programming course had little or no understanding of fundamental concepts. The test was useful if the number of correct responses w as considered. Implications of students passing an introductory course but being unable to respond correctly on a multiple choice test of the most fundamental concepts of programming are considered.