Collaborative Research: Development of Concept Inventories for Computer Science

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This project is improving the assessment of student learning in computer science by developing three concept inventories for introductory computer science subjects. Modeled after the successful Force Concept Inventory that was developed to assess student learning of Newtonian physics, the concept inventories are testing understanding of key computer science concepts in a manner that enables reliable comparisons between courses at different universities. This multi-institution partnership among the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rose-Hulman Institute, and Washington University is helping to ensure the validity of the proposed instruments by providing access to diverse student populations and different program objectives. With a standardized assessment tool, the computer science education community can make meaningful comparisons of the effectiveness of different pedagogical approaches, greatly facilitating computer science education research.Concept inventories are designed to test student comprehension of difficult concepts by forcing a choice between the correct answer and distractors constructed from common student misconceptions. As the primary source of information about which topics are difficult and about what the most common misconceptions are, students are being directly engaged through introspections, discussions, interviews, and "think alouds" to direct the development of questions for the concept inventories. These questions are then being refined and validated through peer review, qualitative, and psychometric analyses. An advisory panel, comprised of experienced concept inventory developers, is advising and annually assessing project progress.