Hackathon as an Effective Learning and Assessment Tool: An Analysis of Student Proficiency against Bloom's Taxonomy

Abstract

In recent years, several learning strategies have been adopted to boost students’ learning and performance. Hackathon as a collaborative learning method, gives students the opportunity to investigate the practical usage of concepts by solving a real-world project in a limited time. Many researchers have investigated the effect of hackathons on students’ engagement, team work and learning motivation. In this paper, we integrate a hackathon component in a software development and architecture course curriculum to evaluate the effect of working on a real-world web development project in a hackathon setting on deepening the theoretical concepts learnt in lectures. The data is collected through two surveys which were accessible to students before and after the hackathon and students code commits on GitHub. By comparing the students’ code quality as well as their answers to survey questions before and after the hackathon against the Bloom’s taxonomy, we understand their knowledge state in each step and possible improvements in each one of the areas. The research findings show the importance of hackathon participation on students’ performance and state of knowledge.