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First Year Computing Students' Perceptions of Authenticity in Assessment

Authors:

Roger McDermott,

Ville IsomöttönenAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Pages 10 - 15

https://doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3059062

Published: 28 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The problem of how best to assess student learning is a fundamental one in education. Changes to computer science curricula seek to emphasise teaching practices that promote deep learning through direct, contextual examination of student performance on tasks that resemble those of practitioners, rather than more traditional methods. This kind of "authentic assessment" is becoming more popular as it appears to incorporate employability skills associated with professional practice into the curriculum in a natural way.

In this paper, we report on an investigation into how computing students themselves understand the terminology of authentic assessment. We give a brief summary of some of the salient points of the theory before using a simple qualitative methodology to analyse responses from a cohort of first year students on their understanding of the term. We produce a learner characterisation of the concept and compare this to those found in educational models of this assessment approach. We comment on the similarities and differences that emerge and draw inferences about its use and the necessary scaffolding that should accompany it in order for it to be successful.

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Cited By

Lovellette EBouvier DMatta J(2024)Contextualization, Authenticity, and the Problem Description EffectACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/364386424:2(1-32)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643864
Bradley SRamezani A(2024)PRIMM and Proper: Authentic Investigation in HE Introductory Programming with PeerWise and GitHubProceedings of the 8th Conference on Computing Education Practice10.1145/3633053.3633062(33-36)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3633053.3633062
Riese EStenbom S(2023)Engineering Students’ Experiences of Assessment in Introductory Computer Science CoursesIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.323889566:4(350-359)Online publication date: Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3238895
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

First Year Computing Students' Perceptions of Authenticity in Assessment
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        CS1
      2. Student assessment

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 2017

412 pages

ISBN:9781450347044

DOI:10.1145/3059009

Conference Chairs:
Renzo Davoli
University of Bologna, Italy
,
Michael Goldweber
Xavier University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Guido Rößling
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
,
Irene Polycarpou
University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 28 June 2017

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ITiCSE '17

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ITiCSE '17: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

July 3 - 5, 2017

Bologna, Italy

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ITiCSE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 56 of 175 submissions, 32%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

Lovellette EBouvier DMatta J(2024)Contextualization, Authenticity, and the Problem Description EffectACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/364386424:2(1-32)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643864
Bradley SRamezani A(2024)PRIMM and Proper: Authentic Investigation in HE Introductory Programming with PeerWise and GitHubProceedings of the 8th Conference on Computing Education Practice10.1145/3633053.3633062(33-36)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3633053.3633062
Riese EStenbom S(2023)Engineering Students’ Experiences of Assessment in Introductory Computer Science CoursesIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.323889566:4(350-359)Online publication date: Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3238895
Riese EBälter O(2022)A Qualitative Study of Experienced Course Coordinators’ Perspectives on Assessment in Introductory Programming Courses for Non-CS MajorsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/351713422:4(1-29)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3517134
Oleson AXie BSalac JEverson JKivuva FKo A(2022)A Decade of Demographics in Computing Education Research: A Critical Review of Trends in Collection, Reporting, and UseProceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3501385.3543967(323-343)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501385.3543967
Rosli DShamsuddin ASafuan H(2022)Authentic Assessment to Enhance Learner’s Active ParticipationAlternative Assessments in Malaysian Higher Education10.1007/978-981-16-7228-6_19(187-194)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7228-6_19
Riese EStenbom S(2020)Experiences of Assessment in Introductory Programming From the Perspective of NonComputer Science Majors2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274060(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274060
McDermott RZarb MDaniels MNylen APears AIsomottonen VCaspersen M(2017)The authenticity of ‘authentic’ assessment some faculty perceptions2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2017.8190604(1-9)Online publication date: Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2017.8190604

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