Assessing the Teaching and Learning Process of an Introductory Programming Course With Bloom's Taxonomy and Assurance of Learning (AOL)

Abstract

Learning to program requires the development of multiple skills including critical thinking, problem-solving, as well as learning the syntax and semantics of the programming language. For novices, to acquire all these skills is considered a challenging and difficult task. They have to focus on both problem-solving strategies and the syntax and semantics of the programming language to acquire these skills. In this study, this article compares the current teaching and learning approach of an introductory programming (IP) course with the six categories of Bloom's taxonomy. The assurance of learning (AOL) process was incorporated in the IP course to assess students' learning outcomes on the basis of achiever (high, medium and low) and performance (very good, good enough and not good enough) categories. The results showed that the current teaching and learning approach of the IP course addressed all the six categories of Bloom's taxonomy. Most of the students (63%) fall under the medium achiever category. Moreover, 50% students learning outcomes come under ‘not good enough' performance category.