We’re putting together a (very) short survey for people who have bought Practical Programming (our intro to CS using Python). What do you think would be the most useful questions to ask readers? The three I’ve thought of so far are:
- How much general programming experience did you have before you bought this book?
- How much Python experience did you have before you bought this book?
- How many of the exercises in the book have you done?
Others?
Did you find it useful? Why? Why not?
I know, these questions might give very general feedback (or might not get answered at all). On the other hand, these questions might catch points you might have otherwise missed. Analyzing feedback data might give you a better idea which specific questions to include in the next questionnaire.
Other questions might be:
What parts of the book helped you most for your understanding of the course material? Exercises? Examples? How the material is explained? Something else?
How do you approach solving problems? Top down or bottom up? Have you ever repeatedly typed the same thing and wondered if there is a way to automatically do it?
How much of the book did you read? What parts of the book did you read?
Many students have programmed before so I think you want them to perhaps list one programming language they have used before using your book with Python.