Construction and Preliminary Validation of a Dynamic Programming Concept Inventory
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Concept inventories are standardized assessments that evaluate student understanding of key concepts within academic disciplines. While prevalent across STEM fields, their development lags for advanced computer science topics like dynamic programming (DP) - an algorithmic technique that poses significant conceptual challenges for undergraduates. To fill this gap, we developed and validated a Dynamic Programming Concept Inventory (DPCI). We detail the iterative process used to formulate multiple-choice questions targeting known student misconceptions about DP concepts identified through prior research studies. We discuss key decisions, tradeoffs, and challenges faced in crafting probing questions to subtly reveal these conceptual misunderstandings. We conducted a preliminary psychometric validation by administering the DPCI to 172 undergraduate CS students finding our questions to be of appropriate difficulty and effectively discriminating between differing levels of student understanding. Taken together, our validated DPCI will enable instructors to accurately assess student mastery of DP. Moreover, our approach for devising a concept inventory for an advanced theoretical computer science concept can guide future efforts to create assessments for other under-evaluated areas currently lacking coverage.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Thu 27 FebDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
15:45 - 17:00 | |||
15:45 18mTalk | Construction and Preliminary Validation of a Dynamic Programming Concept Inventory Papers Matthew Ferland University of Southern California, Varun Nagaraj Rao Princeton University, Arushi Arora University of California, Irvine, Drew van der Poel Northeastern, Michael Luu University of California, Irvine, Randy Huynh University of California Irvine, Frederick Reiber Boston University, Sandra Ossman UC Irvine, Seth Poulsen Utah State University, Michael Shindler University of California, Irvine | ||
16:03 18mTalk | Investigating the Capabilities of Generative AI in Solving Data Structures, Algorithms, and Computability Problems Papers Ofek Gila University of California, Irvine, Shahar Broner University of California, Irvine, Yubin Kim UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Nero Li UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Katrina Mizuo UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Elijah Sauder UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Claire To UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Albert Wang UC Irvine, Computer Science Department, Michael Shindler University of California, Irvine | ||
16:22 18mTalk | Reflections on Teaching Algorithm Courses Papers J. Ángel Velázquez-Iturbide Universidad Rey Juan Carlos | ||
16:41 18mTalk | Student Utilization of Metacognitive Strategies in Solving Dynamic Programming Problems Papers Jonathan Liu University of Chicago, Erica Goodwin University of Chicago, Diana Franklin University of Chicago |