CS 160A - Intro to Unix/Linux - Stage 5 - Charles Metzler
Assessment
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| Assessment Description | I examine all homework and all test questions for new issues as well as to follow up on last year’s suggestions. |
| Learning Outcomes | All |
| Number of Sections | 5 |
| Number of Instructors | 3 |
| Number of Students | 200 |
Data Analysis
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| Data Summary | I examine all homework and all test questions for new issues as well as to follow up on last year’s suggestions. The last assessment revealed the following suggestions and issues: Objective A 1) T2.3 path navigation (29%) 64, 67, 100, 100 Change wording to avoid confusion of the ~ 2) T2.7 rmdir (43%) 60, 64, 69 Add a a new practice quiz question regarding rmdir –r not being valid 3) T2.14 meta – squares (47%) 64, 79 The current two categories are metacharacters and metacharacters harder. I will change these into metacharacters and metacharacters range as that seems to the harder versions in both categories. This gives better consistency between tests. Objective B 4) T2.17 perms – dir (39%) 71, 89 Change wording from ‘none of the above’ to ‘x and r permission are both needed’ 5) T2.18 perms – dir+file (41%) 56, 64 Warn students to study up more on this concept on the test review. Objective D 6) T3.3 cat (36%) 70, 70, 88, 100 Take off ‘none of the above’ as this should be an easy question. 7) T3.4 head tail (33%) 71, 90, 100, 100, 100 Warn students the middle group of lines is a harder version 8) T3.13 df du diff (44%) 85, 100 Change the wording. Objective E 9) F.7 grep perms /dev && (31%) 64 Change the wording. 10) F.10 regex vs meta (0%) 50, 64, 67, 82, 90 Change the wording. 11) F.12 regEx - .* (29%) 52, 69 All 4 homework averages have increased since the last assessment, may be due to my increased dropping of students when they do not participate. Assignment #2 showed student improvement after I put hints regarding the use of two command arguments. The plans regarding issues revealed in the last assessment analysis have all been accomplished. Problem areas from the last assessment were checked and were successfully performed by students except for the areas included in the analysis below. The following 7 questions had low (50% or less) score results: 1) T2.3 path navigation 45 45% There has been an improvement (45%) since the last assessment (29%). Two issues are now noticed: the ~ and / (root) directory references. 2) T2.14 meta – squares 42% Students are doing about the same as the last assessment (47%) They forget each range represents a single character 3) T2.17 perms dir meaning 23% Students did not improve from the last assessment (39%) Directory permissions are a hard concept in Unix 4) T3.11 sort multiple fields 30 44% This is a new version on sorting more than one field 5) F.7 grep perms 31% Students did not improve from the last assessment (31%) This is another version like T2.17 6) F.10 regex vs meta 27 37 43% There has been an improvement since the last assessment (0%). This is difficult to notice the differences between * especially 7) F.12 regEx - .* 37 42% There has been an improvement since the last assessment (29%). We have broken down the regular expression questions and found * to be the hardest |
| Analysis Summary | There were 7 question categories on all tests results that were 50% or less. The changes made from the suggestions from areas from last year had some improvements and there are some continuing issues. Generally in Unix classes, permissions and pattern matching remain the most difficult concepts. These are objectives B and E. The have been several discussions since the last assessment with other members of the department who teach this class (Gregory Boyd, Constance Conner, Aaron Brick) regarding the course objectives and specific ideas in the content. 1) how to cover/measure extended regular expressions, on final and/or assignments 2) change the deprecated –follow option on find to–L 3) change the deprecated tail -# option: i.e. tail –12 with tail –n 12 4) remove the –b option from sort on the course outline, default works for tabs and blanks 5) A major change to the sort sequence being dependent to locales, gave rise to discussions on removing the –f option from sort on the course outline and to no longer discuss the ACSII sequence. 6) We discussed the use of the exit status and the && delimiter and decided to remove that from the course outline. 7) Added references to the Practice and Explore instead of using preliminaries in assignments due to confusion over several semesters. 8) All versions of questions regarding pwd got 100%. I made them more complex since the questions were too simple and coordinated with the path questions. 9) We decided not to use the linux style (double-dash with words instead of single characters) options, and just use the traditional. |
| Next Steps Planned | Here are my plans to experiment: Objective A 1) T2.3 path navigation 45 45% Add specifics to the test review: ~ and / (root) 2) T2.14 meta – squares 42% Add specifics to the test review: single character ranges Objective B 3) T2.17 perms dir meaning 23% and 5) F.7 grep perms 31% Directory permissions are a hard concept in Unix. I will create and add a video on directory permission to the course Objective D 4) T3.11 sort multiple fields 30 44% This is a new version on sorting more than one field. We decided to include a new question on sorting a portion of a field. There has been additional practice questions added on both of these concepts, and are taking off –f and –b (see below) Objective E 6) F.10 regex vs meta 27 37 43% 7) F.12 regEx - .* 37 42% I will significantly change the regex question on the final exam for single metacharacters and other questions on using multiple metacharacters. |
| Learning Outcomes | A, B, E, E |
Changes
| Details | Here are my plans to experiment: Objective A 1) T2.3 path navigation 45 45% Add specifics to the test review: ~ and / (root) 2) T2.14 meta – squares 42% Add specifics to the test review: single character ranges Objective B 3) T2.17 perms dir meaning 23% and 5) F.7 grep perms 31% Directory permissions are a hard concept in Unix. I will create and add a video on directory permission to the course Objective D 4) T3.11 sort multiple fields 30 44% This is a new version on sorting more than one field. We decided to include a new question on sorting a portion of a field. There has been additional practice questions added on both of these concepts, and are taking off –f and –b (see below) Objective E 6) F.10 regex vs meta 27 37 43% 7) F.12 regEx - .* 37 42% I will significantly change the regex question on the final exam for single metacharacters and other questions on using multiple metacharacters. |
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| Learning Outcomes | A, B, D, E |
Tentative Future Plans
| Term | Summer 2013 |
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| Activities |
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| More Details | I examine all homework and all test questions for new issues as well as to follow up on last year’s suggestions. |
SLO Details Storage Location
- ELECTRONIC COPY - In my electronic filing system (hard drive or web server)
- ELECTRONIC COPY - On a department web server or shared document system