Comparing course assessments : when lower is higher and higher, lower

This paper describes an exercise in determining the cognitive difficulty of the assessment tasks in six computing courses within an Information Technology (IT) degree, importing Bloom’s taxonomy from the field of educational psychology as an analytical framework. Three of the six courses comprise a Programming stream and three a Data Communications and Networking stream. Bloom’s taxonomy is described and we present other studies within computer science based on it. Next, we introduce the courses that were selected for the study and describe the process of analysis. The aggregated results are then presented and some inferences made. The results indicate that the programming courses required a relatively higher cognitive level in assessment tasks compared to the data communications and networking courses. This outcome suggests the need for alternative approaches to assessment.