ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1595171
A Framework of Seven Success Factors for Using E-Assessment in Higher Education to Assess Coding
Provisionally accepted
- University of Southampton, Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom
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Assessment is an essential element in higher education processes and its use is becoming highly widespread with the increasing digitalisation of universities. E-assessment plays a major role in the success of the educational process due to its distinctive benefits, such as improving students' experience and performance, and optimising instructors' effort. The primary objective of this project is to identify success factors of the use of e-assessment methods from instructors' perspectives. The study aims to focus on computer science (CS) instructors who assess coding assignments in higher education in the UK and Saudi universities. A mixed methods approach was used to conduct the study. 16 interviews with CS instructors in the UK and Saudi universities were conducted, together with a survey as its quantitative element. Although the survey data brings out clear disparities in the perception of personalized feedback in the UK and Saudi Arabia; the findings indicate a lack of training courses for instructors and the shortage of specific automated tools to assess coding. There are also too few tools or systems for providing automated and personalized feedback. Additionally, existing e-assessment tools do not meet instructors' expectations on several key pedagogical and practical aspects such as flexibility, accessibility, scalability, practicality, validity, reliability and authenticity. Notably, instructors spend significant time and effort assessing code assignments, which could hinder learning outcomes and the enhancement of educational activities. This study provides a comprehensive framework outlining success factors for effective assessment. Such a framework will benefit e-assessment tools suppliers, instructors and universities, ultimately enhancing the quality of instructors' assessments.
Keywords: E-assessment, higher education, computer science education, E-assessment Framework, Coding Assessment
Received: 02 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alamr, León-Urrutia and Carr. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Safiah Mohammed Alamr, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Hampshire, United Kingdom
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