Comparing different styles of automated feedback for programming exercises

Automatic assessment has become a popular choice in programming courses, but there are several pedagogical issues to consider, e.g. how to reduce students' reliance on pre-made tests. Educators have tackled these issues using a variety of automatic assessment styles, but their results are difficult to compare because of different contexts. In this paper, we share our experience with four different automatic assessment styles used within a single run of an introductory programming course with over 300 students.