20,798 research outputs found
The Effect of Object-Oriented Programming Expertise in Several Dimensions of Comprehension Strategies
This study analyzes object-oriented (OO) program comprehension by experts and novices. We examine the effect of expertise in three dimensions of comprehension strategies: the scope of the comprehension, the top-down versus bottom-up direction of the processes, and the guidance of the comprehension activity. Overall, subjects were similar in the scope of their comprehension, although the experts tended to consult more files. We found strong evidence of top-down, inference-driven behaviors, as well as multiple guidance in expert comprehension. We also found evidence of execution-based guidance and less use of top-down processes in novice comprehension. Guidance by inheritance and composition relationships in the OO program was not dominant, but nevertheless played a substantial role in expert program comprehension. However, these static relationships more closely tied to the OO nature of the program were exploited poorly by novices. To conclude, these results are discussed with respect to the literature on procedural program comprehension
RePOR: Mimicking humans on refactoring tasks. Are we there yet?
Refactoring is a maintenance activity that aims to improve design quality
while preserving the behavior of a system. Several (semi)automated approaches
have been proposed to support developers in this maintenance activity, based on
the correction of anti-patterns, which are `poor' solutions to recurring design
problems. However, little quantitative evidence exists about the impact of
automatically refactored code on program comprehension, and in which context
automated refactoring can be as effective as manual refactoring. Leveraging
RePOR, an automated refactoring approach based on partial order reduction
techniques, we performed an empirical study to investigate whether automated
refactoring code structure affects the understandability of systems during
comprehension tasks. (1) We surveyed 80 developers, asking them to identify
from a set of 20 refactoring changes if they were generated by developers or by
a tool, and to rate the refactoring changes according to their design quality;
(2) we asked 30 developers to complete code comprehension tasks on 10 systems
that were refactored by either a freelancer or an automated refactoring tool.
To make comparison fair, for a subset of refactoring actions that introduce new
code entities, only synthetic identifiers were presented to practitioners. We
measured developers' performance using the NASA task load index for their
effort, the time that they spent performing the tasks, and their percentages of
correct answers. Our findings, despite current technology limitations, show
that it is reasonable to expect a refactoring tools to match developer code
Links between the personalities, styles and performance in computer programming
There are repetitive patterns in strategies of manipulating source code. For
example, modifying source code before acquiring knowledge of how a code works
is a depth-first style and reading and understanding before modifying source
code is a breadth-first style. To the extent we know there is no study on the
influence of personality on them. The objective of this study is to understand
the influence of personality on programming styles. We did a correlational
study with 65 programmers at the University of Stuttgart. Academic achievement,
programming experience, attitude towards programming and five personality
factors were measured via self-assessed survey. The programming styles were
asked in the survey or mined from the software repositories. Performance in
programming was composed of bug-proneness of programmers which was mined from
software repositories, the grades they got in a software project course and
their estimate of their own programming ability. We did statistical analysis
and found that Openness to Experience has a positive association with
breadth-first style and Conscientiousness has a positive association with
depth-first style. We also found that in addition to having more programming
experience and better academic achievement, the styles of working depth-first
and saving coarse-grained revisions improve performance in programming.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure
A study of novice programmer performance and programming pedagogy.
Identifying and mitigating the difficulties experienced by novice programmers is an active
area of research that has embraced a number of research areas. The aim of this research
was to perform a holistic study into the causes of poor performance in novice
programmers and to develop teaching approaches to mitigate them. A grounded action
methodology was adopted to enable the primary concepts of programming cognitive
psychology and their relationships to be established, in a systematic and formal manner.
To further investigate novice programmer behaviour, two sub-studies were conducted
into programming performance and ability.
The first sub-study was a novel application of the FP-Tree algorithm to determine if
novice programmers demonstrated predictable patterns of behaviour. This was the first
study to data mine programming behavioural characteristics rather than the learner’s
background information such as age and gender. Using the algorithm, patterns of
behaviour were generated and associated with the students’ ability. No patterns of
behaviour were identified and it was not possible to predict student results using this
method. This suggests that novice programmers demonstrate no set patterns of
programming behaviour that can be used determine their ability, although problem
solving was found to be an important characteristic. Therefore, there was no evidence
that performance could be improved by adopting pedagogies to promote simple changes
in programming behaviour beyond the provision of specific problem solving instruction.
A second sub-study was conducted using Raven’s Matrices which determined that
cognitive psychology, specifically working memory, played an important role in novice
programmer ability. The implication was that programming pedagogies must take into
consideration the cognitive psychology of programming and the cognitive load imposed
on learners.
Abstracted Construct Instruction was developed based on these findings and forms a new
pedagogy for teaching programming that promotes the recall of abstract patterns while
reducing the cognitive demands associated with developing code. Cognitive load is
determined by the student’s ability to ignore irrelevant surface features of the written
problem and to cross-reference between the problem domain and their mental program
model. The former is dealt with by producing tersely written exercises to eliminate
distractors, while for the latter the teaching of problem solving should be delayed until
the student’s program model is formed. While this does delay the development of
problem solving skills, the problem solving abilities of students taught using this pedagogy
were found to be comparable with students taught using a more traditional approach.
Furthermore, monitoring students’ understanding of these patterns enabled micromanagement of the learning process, and hence explanations were provided for novice
behaviour such as difficulties using arrays, inert knowledge and “code thrashing”.
For teaching more complex problem solving, scaffolding of practice was investigated
through a program framework that could be developed in stages by the students.
However, personalising the level of scaffolding required was complicated and found to be
difficult to achieve in practice.
In both cases, these new teaching approaches evolved as part of a grounded theory study
and a clear progression of teaching practice was demonstrated with appropriate
evaluation at each stage in accordance with action researc
Design: One, but in different forms
This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design
hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design
activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between
these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design
situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact)
introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and
structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the
classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing.
We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and
propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a
number of directions requiring further elaboration
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