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The only things that I know:
Any ideas about what kind of programming activities to expect (preferably by people who have already participated in an assessment day)?
An assessment day is a spectacle held by some companies wrongfully convinced it is a good idea. You are there an actor and you need to define for yourself which role you are going to play.
Assessment arrangement is supposed to provide interviewers with genuine information to how a particular candidate behaves in real world situation. Unfortunately:
The situation is not real by any stretch of a definition
People attending are not selected yet therefore they make up a random bunch possibly incapable of ever forming a team
Everybody knows they're on clock and is therefore stressed
Everybody understands they are being watched and is therefore stressed second time
Everybody thinks they know what the interviewers want to see and is therefore wearing a certain mask and playing a particular role which annihilates the very idea of unveiling their true personality
Since everybody is behaving ingenuinely everybody is stressed. The third time.
Since everybody is stressed several times over nobody is capable of behaving naturally, even if they wanted
At the end of the assessment day interviewers select those baboons who guessed the desired behavior correctly and managed to improvise it. The interviewers end up with a random bunch.
I've attended such events myself. At the one we had a group of graduates who apparently lacked any sort of practical development skills. As it was closing to an end and we still haven't figured a solution I jumped in with a working solution, explained it to everybody then we presented it. I was then told I tried to exercise authority and pushed my solution on the team.
At the other one I tried to restrain my activity not to look authoritative again, listened to the others' input and tried to find a compromise. After the event I was told I was passive and initiativeless. Go figure.
A few tips what they want to see:
Otherwise it is a show, a spectacle as it is. Play, watch, enjoy, have fun. Unfortunately you're not allowed pop-corn.
Wikipedia and Assessment Day tend to suggest this is more of a general aptitude component, with a specific example or two being found on The Guardian. As the last couple of links are to UK sites this may be more likely to be found in that part of the world as I don't know of the term and have lived in Canada and the U.S. just to disclose that part of things.
I'd be tempted to suggest it is about what can you do quickly without a lot of prep work, what do you seem to just naturally know versus what was crammed, and lastly that a lot of this could be to build a bit of a psychological profile based on skimming the above links. Of course the terms are rather generic enough that there may be an alternative explanation out there somewhere.
The approach will depend on the organisation and there goals: i.e. are they trying to find someone experienced or recruiting a graduate. If it is graduate selection, there will be a lot less credence put on specific technology prowess and much more on your capability.
I would expect:
