Improving Educational Outcomes: Developing and Assessing Grading System (ProGrader) for Programming Courses.

The proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) [ 1 ] has led to an increased interest in automated grading for programming assignments. Educational institutions now employ a variety of techniques and systems to grade programming assignments automatically, in order to make the grading process more efficient and improve students’ learning experience. This paper introduces ProGrader system, an innovative automated grading tool to evaluate student progress in programming courses. The paper presents an in-depth design and implementation of the various components and standout features that make up the ProGrader system. These features include the usability of the system, the grading criteria of students’ submission, available automated instructor’s feedbacks, supported programming languages, integration with other tools, scalability, and user-friendly interface design. Furthermore, the paper also discusses the incorporation of learning activities based on the Felder-Silverman model [ 2 ] to identify student learning styles and learning objectives. ProGrader is among the first grading tools that utilizes test-driven development methodologies and technologies. A pilot study involving 3 assignments and 45 students has been conducted to evaluate the system's usability and effectiveness. The present study was conducted with the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Salem State University. The course activities using Java programming language were designed based on the Felder-Silverman model [ 2 ], which aimed to identify the students’ learning styles and connect them with specific learning objectives. The ProGrader tool was utilized in the study, providing students with a playground page where they could think, write and test their answers based on given instructions. The tool also provided automated feedback on how to correct mistakes and discouraged plagiarism by requiring students to write the code line by line before proceeding to the final submission. Students were unable to copy-paste of code from other sources into the ProGrader tool. Upon completion of the activities, students received a grade, feedback on areas for improvement. The results of the study, including the usability, its implications and impact on student and teacher experience, are discussed in the paper. The features and considerations presented in this paper can assist in the evaluation of grading systems and enhance the quality of education for students. The ProGrader tool incorporates the following six features that give an edge over existing solutions: (1) ProGrader uses the code correctness as the grading criteria for programming assignments; (2) Provides instant feedback provided by ProGrader; (3) Support of a wide range of programming language; (4) Produces built-in Integration of debugging tools and code profilers; (5) imparts scalability and (6) Furnishes easy to use user interface for students and instructors.