One Small Step Toward a Culture of Peer Review and Multi- Institutional Sharing of Educational Resources: A Multiple Choice Exam for First Semester Programming Students

This paper presents a multiple choice question exam, used to test students completing their first semester of programming. Assumptions in the design of the exam are identified. A detailed analysis is performed on how students performed on the questions. The intent behind this exercise is to begin a community process of identifying the criteria that define an effective multiple-choice exam for testing novice programmers. The long term aim is to develop consensus on peer review criteria of such exams. This consensus is seen as a necessary precondition for any future public domain library of such multiple-choice questions

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