Designing a Rubric for Feedback on Code Quality in Programming Courses

We investigate how to create a rubric that can be used to give feedback on code quality to students in introductory programming courses. Based on an existing model of code quality and a set of preliminary design rules, we constructed a rubric and put it through several design iterations. Each iteration focused on different aspects of the rubric, and solutions to various programming assignments were used to evaluate. The rubric appears to be complete for the assignments it was tested on. We articulate additional design aspects that can be used when drafting new feedback rubrics for programming courses.