What are
Coding Assessments
Coding assessments are assignments that evaluate students’ ability to write, test, and debug real code in a structured environment. For higher education faculty, coding assessments move beyond multiple-choice questions or paper-based problem sets to measure what students can actually do with programming concepts. These assessments are especially valuable in courses where skill mastery, logical thinking, and applied problem-solving are central learning outcomes.
Rather than assessing whether students recognize correct syntax or concepts, coding assessments ask students to actively implement solutions, making them a strong form of applied and skills-based evaluation. When well designed, they provide immediate feedback, support practice and iteration, and help instructors identify where students struggle in the coding process—not just in final answers.
Why faculty use coding assessments
There are several benefits to using coding and programming assessments. Firstly, these types of assessments are proven to increase pass rates. In a study of automated programming exams, integrating structured coding assessments with automated feedback substantially reduced student failure rates in introductory programming courses, demonstrating the clear impact of hands-on coding practice on student success (Rojec et al., 2025). Instructors often adopt coding assessments when they want to:
- Assess true programming proficiency, not memorization
- Emphasize hands-on learning and problem solving
- Provide students with opportunities to practice writing and running real code
- Reduce manual grading time through automated evaluation
- Align assessments more closely with industry and research expectations
Coding assessments are particularly effective in introductory and intermediate programming courses, where frequent practice and timely feedback are critical for student success.
Coding questions in Top Hat
In Top Hat, coding assessments are delivered through coding questions—auto-graded programming tasks embedded directly into course content. These questions allow students to write, run, and submit real code within the platform, without switching to an external coding environment.
Each coding question includes:
- Editable starter code to scaffold student work
- Hidden instructor solution code for accurate evaluation
- Multiple automated test cases that compare student output against expected results
- Protection against hardcoding, ensuring assessments measure genuine skill mastery
Because grading is automated, instructors can assign more frequent practice while maintaining consistent, objective evaluation across large classes.
Who can benefit from Top Hat’s coding questions?
Coding questions are designed for Computer Science and applied programming courses, including:
- Any course with applied coding components aligned to OpenStax content
- Introductory and intermediate programming (Python, C, C++, Java, JavaScript)
- Computer science fundamentals
- Data science and research methods
These assessments are especially useful in courses where instructors want to reinforce learning through repeated practice, immediate feedback and authentic coding tasks. The initial release of coding questions will be available inside OpenStax textbooks within Top Hat, including:
- Introduction to Python Programming
- Introduction to Computer Science
- Principles of Data Science
By embedding coding assessments directly into textbook content, Top Hat enables instructors to teach, assign, and assess programming skills in one cohesive learning experience.