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Basic Data Structures Inventory (BDSI)

Purpose

Basic Data Structures Inventory (BDSI) is data structures included on the instrument are Array-Based Lists, Linked-Lists, and Binary Search Trees.

Population

BDSI is designed to be used in conjunction with Computer Science 2 (CS2) courses that teach basic data structures.

Typical Performance

We have yet to carry out an analysis of the LASSO data for typical performance, although the literature study shows that students who transferred to our institution from a different school perform significantly worse on the BDSI than other students and do not improve their BDSI performance in later courses.

Example question:

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Validity

RCDI has been administered to college chemistry students, and valid data supported by relevant articles listed below:

●      Porter, L., Zingaro, D., Liao, S. N., Taylor, C., Webb, K. C., Lee, C., & Clancy, M. (2019, July). BDSI: A validated concept inventory for basic data structures. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (pp. 111-119).

●      Valstar, S., Krause-Levy, S., Salguero, A., Porter, L., & Griswold, W. G. (2021, June). Proficiency in basic data structures among various subpopulations of students at different stages in a CS program. In Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 429-435).

●      Webb, K. C., Zingaro, D., Liao, S. N., Taylor, C., Lee, C., Clancy, M., & Porter, L. (2021). Student performance on the BDSI for basic data structures. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 22(1), 1-34.

●      Layman, L., Song, Y., & Guinn, C. (2020, April). Toward predicting success and failure in cs2: A mixed-method analysis. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Southeast Conference (pp. 218-225).

Research

We recommend using Google Scholar and the citations listed under validation to find articles of interest.

Example LASSO Report

Please follow this link to our example report for concept inventories.

Similar Instruments

Chemistry Self Concept Inventory (CSCI)

More Information

For more information, please visit https://dbserc.secure.pitt.edu/Assessment/Assessments-Computer-Science