Objective based assessment in a first programming course

This paper is the follow up to a work-in-progress paper presented at FIE 2001 that proposed an objective-based pedagogy in a first programming course. The goal of the project was to develop specific objectives for the students to achieve in a first course in programming and to assess the students directly against those objectives. Each student´s grade in the course depends solely upon how many objectives he or she has achieved. This paper presents the refinements of the objectives and the pedagogy along with a detailed assessment of the final method The refinements are a direct result of comments received at FIE 2001 and from the second author´s experience in teaching the course during the fall semester of 2001. The changes made to the previously published method are designed to more closely match the objectives with the overall goals of the first course in programming at Loras College and to make the course more manageable for the instructor. It was found that some objectives are important enough to be required and that the number of attempts at an objective should be limited.