The Evidence on Teaching

Uses, Revisions, and the Future of Validated Assessments in Computing Education: A Case Study of the FCS1 and SCS1

Parker, M. C., Guzdial, M., & Tew, A. E. · 2021

grade Dreviewindependentnot-applicable
Sample
Not confirmed
Population
The computing education research community.
Design
A retrospective and positional review comparing computing education's assessment maturity to physics education research and the Force Concept Inventory. No new data.
Key findings
Ten years after the FCS1 and five after the SCS1, the authors trace how little the validated instruments were actually adopted. The implicit finding is the one this subject cares about: the overwhelming majority of published programming-instruction effect sizes rest on instruments nobody validated.
Genetic confound
Not applicable.
Replication notes
A retrospective on a decade of instrument use; nothing to replicate.
DOI / URL
10.1145/3446871.3469744

Effects

OutcomeMetricValueMeasureTimingVsHorizonClass
Adoption of validated instruments in computing education researchnarrativelimited adoption relative to physics education researchmixednot applicablenonenot-applicableunclear