Types of Questions in Computer Science Education - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 174

Table 9.3 Tasks as pure-algorithmic tasks and as narrative-algorithmic tasks
The task Pure-algorithmic

formulation

Narrative-algorithmic formulation

Find the maximum of a list
of numbers

Write a method that
returns the maximum
value of a given list of
integers

In a sport competition, 5 classes of
30 pupils each participates in two
jumping competitions. Write a pro-
gram that displays for each class
the best result in each of the two
jumping competitions for given
two results of each student

Checks whether a given
array is sorted

Write a method that
returns true if a given
array is sorted; otherwise,
it returns false

A teacher wishes to encourage his
or her pupils, and to give them a
written recognition if their grades
are improved in each test. Write
a method to determine whether a
given student deserves the recogni-
tion based on his list of grades

Change characters to their
successive characters
according to the Unicode
table

Write a method that
changes a given array of
characters in a way that
replaces each charac-
ter with its successive
character according to the
Unicode table

A message that should be sent
between financial partners should
be encoded. The message includes
words, spaces, and dots. Write
a method that returns a coded
message in which each letter of
the given message (String) is
replaced by its successive letter in
the alphabetical order. The letter
“Z” will be replaced with the letter
“A.” Spaces and dots should not be
changed

be solved; in narrative-algorithmic tasks, students should discover the task to be
solved. Since in the real world, most problems are based on narratives, the ability to
solve of narrative-algorithmic tasks is an important skill that CS learners should ac-
quire. It should be remembered, though, that these questions are more complicated.
Accordingly, when teaching a new CS content, story questions should be ad-
dressed in several stages: (1) present a general story that embeds the new learned
topic, so that the class gains the essence and target of the new topic; (2) focus for
a while on pure-algorithmic questions, to allow a gradual knowledge construction
process of the new tool or structure; (3) integrate narrative questions in the continu-
ation of the teaching process.

9.4.2 Closed Questions

The common interpretation of a closed question is a question that is presented to-
gether with a list of possible answers and the learners' task is to choose the correct
answer from this list. The frequent types of closed questions are multiple-choice
questions or true/false questions. It should be remembered, though, that in fact, the
answers are closed but not the questions.