N. Kalogeropoulos, E.A. Pavlatou, A. Boudouvis, I. Tzigounakis
International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI 2009) (2009), Madrid (Spain), November 16-18, p. 6990-6997 (CD-rom) (poster)
In recent years, computer-based assessment (CBA) has been developed significantly and is increasingly implemented for student evaluation all over the world. In this study the score equivalence of CBA and PPT in an undergraduate course of introductory computer programming at the National Technical University of Athens' School of Chemical Engineering is examined. In order to test the efficiency of CBA, 211 students participated in a properly designed practical examination, which utilized a specially constructed CBA platform along with the classical PPT and which consisted of multiple-choice type questions, completing and correcting code in MatLab and Fortran, as well as writing code in Fortran. Our results showed in general that students performed better and got higher scores under CBA compared to PPT. However, different results were recorded for each part of the test. For the first part, namely the multiple choice questions, students got comparable scores both in CBA and PPT. For the second and third part, i.e. the exercises in Fortran and MatLab, a significant difference between the students' performance in the two versions of the test was revealed. Overall, the findings of this study revealed that the actual programming abilities of the students are better evaluated using such CBA tests in programming courses.