We explore the role of quizzes in elementary visual programming domains popularly used for K-8 computing education. Prior work has studied various quiz types, such as fill-in-the-gap write-code questions. However, the overall impact of these quizzes is unclear: studies often show utility in the learning phase when enhanced with quizzes, though limited transfer of utility in the post-learning phase. In this paper, we aim to better understand the impact of different quiz types and whether quizzes focusing on diverse skills (e.g., code debugging and task design) would have higher utility. We design a study with Hour of Code: Maze Challenge by code.org as the base curriculum, interleaved with different quiz types. Specifically, we examine two learning groups: (i) HoC-ACE with diverse quizzes including solution tracing, code debugging, code equivalence, and task design; (ii) HoC-Fill with simple quizzes on solution finding. We conducted a large-scale study with 405 students in grades 6--7. Our results highlight that the curriculum enhanced with richer quizzes led to higher utility during the post-learning phase.

翻译：本研究探讨了在K-8计算教育中广泛使用的小学可视化编程领域中测验的作用。先前的研究已经考察了多种测验类型，例如填空式编写代码问题。然而，这些测验的整体影响尚不明确：研究通常显示在学习阶段辅以测验能提升效用，但在后学习阶段效用的迁移有限。本文旨在更好地理解不同测验类型的影响，以及专注于多样化技能（例如代码调试和任务设计）的测验是否会具有更高的效用。我们以code.org的“编程一小时：迷宫挑战”为基础课程，设计了穿插不同测验类型的研究。具体而言，我们考察了两个学习组：(i) HoC-ACE组，包含多样化的测验，如解决方案追踪、代码调试、代码等价性判断和任务设计；(ii) HoC-Fill组，仅包含简单的解决方案寻找测验。我们对405名6至7年级学生进行了大规模研究。我们的结果表明，辅以更丰富测验的课程在后学习阶段带来了更高的效用。