Experiences of early assessment to teach functional programming

Chapman, Peter

Abstract

This paper reports on the experiences of using an early assessment intervention, specifically employing a Use-Modify-Create scaffold, to teach first-year undergraduate functional programming. The particular intervention that was trialled was the use of an early assessment instrument, in which students had to use code given to them, or slightly modify it, to achieve certain goals. The intended outcome was that the students would thus engage earlier with the functional language, enabling them to be better prepared for the second piece of assessment, where they create code to solve given problems. This intervention showed promise: the difference between a student’s score on the Create assignment improved by an average of 9% in the year after the intervention was implemented, a small effect.

Citation

Chapman, P. (2025). Experiences of early assessment to teach functional programming. Journal of Functional Programming, 35, Article e4. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796824000182

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 2, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Feb 3, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 4, 2025
• Journal: Journal of Functional Programming
• Print ISSN: 0956-7968
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-7653
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 35
• Article Number: e4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796824000182
• Keywords: Haskell, use-modify-create, assessment
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4042907