"I Impressed Myself With How Confident I Felt": Reflections on a Computer Science Assessment for K-8 Teachers

The computer science education community has made great strides in promoting diversity and inclusion in computing fields and bringing K-12 CS learning opportunities to broader groups of learners. However, one area that has not been investigated fully is how assessments can influence a learner's confidence and attitudes towards CS. Stereotype threat and test modality have been shown to affect the performance of CS test takers. This experience report examines how novice CS learners respond to a CS assessment by investigating an increasingly important group of novice CS learners: K-8 classroom teachers. We conducted focus groups with elementary and middle school teachers as part of a week-long CS professional development workshop. The focus groups were held after teachers completed pre- and post-assessments. The assessment instrument featured multiple-choice and short-answer questions with block-based programming snippets. Many teachers reported a positive disposition towards learning CS after completing the pre-assessment, which they attributed to having a growth mindset. Themes related to their confidence involved the difficulty and format of the assessment, with comments about difficulty reducing after the post-assessment. When asked about their thoughts on the assessment from the perspective of their students, they provided suggestions with particular attention to its format. These findings provide insight for CS assessment design and implementation, as well as support further research on the impact of assessments on CS learners.