Exploring the Impact of Quizzes Interleaved with Write-Code Tasks in Elementary-Level Visual ProgrammingGlobalK12
This program is tentative and subject to change.
We explore the role of quizzes in elementary visual programming domains popularly used for K-8 computing education. Prior work has studied various quiz types, such as fill-in-the-gap write-code questions and Parson’s problems. However, the overall impact of these quizzes is unclear: studies often show utility in the learning phase when enhanced with quizzes, though limited transfer of utility in the post-learning phase. In this paper, we aim to better understand the impact of different quiz types and whether quizzes focusing on diverse skills (e.g., code debugging and task design) would have higher utility. We design a study with Hour of Code: Maze Challenge by code.org as the base curriculum, interleaved with different quiz types. Specifically, we examine two learning groups: (i) HoCACE with diverse quizzes including solution tracing, code debugging, code equivalence, and task design; (ii) HoCFill with simple quizzes on solution finding. We conducted a large-scale study with 405 students in grades 6–7 across 17 schools. Our results highlight that the curriculum enhanced with richer quizzes led to better engagement during the learning phase and higher utility during the post-learning phase.