On the Influence of Representation Type and Gender on Recognition Tasks of Program Comprehension

RÉSUMÉ L’objectif de la maintenance logicielle est d’améliorer les logiciels existants en préservant leur intégrité. La maintenance peut représenter jusqu’à 60% du budget d’un logiciel. Ainsi, améliorer la maintenabilité des logiciels est bénéfique aussi bien pour les fournisseurs que les utilisateurs de logiciels. Les développeurs de logiciels consacrent un effort considérable à la compréhension des programmes, qui est une étape primordiale à la maintenance logicielle. Nous faisons l’hypothèque que le genre des développeurs de logiciels et le type de représentation peut affecter leur effort et leur efficacité. Ces facteurs doivent être considérés et minutieusement analysés dans la mesure où ils peuvent cacher certains effets significatifs pouvant être identifiés en analysant le processus de compréhension. Dans cette thèse, nous nous inspirons de l’utilisation de l’occulomètre pour l’étude du processus cognitif lors de la résolution des problèmes. Nous avons effectué une étude fonctionnelle pour évaluer tous les travaux de recherche faisant usage de l’occulomètre en génie logiciel. Les résultats obtenus nous ont motivé à utiliser l’occulomètre pour effectuer un ensemble d’études afin analyser l’effet de deux facteurs importants sur la compréhension des programmes : le type de représentation (textuelle ou graphique) et le genre du développeur. Afin de comprendre comment les différents types de représentations et le genre influencent les stratégies de visualisation, nous avons étudié la différence de stratégie entre développeurs. Les résultats obtenus montrent que, comparé à une représentation graphique, la représentation sous forme de texte structuré aide mieux le développeur dans son processus cognitif lors de la compréhension des programmes de petite taille. Ainsi, la représentation textuelle requiert moins de temps et d’effort aux participants. Par contre, la représentation graphique est celle préférée par les développeurs. Nos résultats montrent que la structure topologique de la représentation graphique aide les développeurs à mémoriser l’emplacement des éléments et à retrouver plus rapidement les éléments pertinents comparé à la représentation textuelle. En plus, la structure hiérarchique de la représentation graphique guide les développeurs à suivre une stratégie de visualisation spécifique. Nous avons observé que les femmes et les hommes ont des stratégies de visualisation différentes lors de la lecture du code ou de la mémorisation des noms des identificateurs. Les femmes ont tendance à inspecter minutieusement toutes les options afin de procéder à l’élimination de la mauvaise réponse. Au contraire, les hommes ont tendance à inspecter brièvement certaines réponses. Pendant que les femmes consacrent plus de temps à analyser chaque type d’entité l’un après l’autre, les hommes alternent leur attention entre différents type d’entité.----------ABSTRACT The purpose of software maintenance is to correct and enhance an existing software system while preserving its integrity. Software maintenance can cost more than 60% of the budget of a software system, thus improving the maintainability of software is important for both the software industry and its customers. Program comprehension is the initial step of software maintenance that requires the major amount of maintenance’s time and effort. We conjuncture that developers’ gender and the type of representations that developers utilize to perform program comprehension impact their efficiency and effectiveness. These factors must be considered and carefully studied, because they may hide some significant effects to be found by analyzing the comprehension process. In this dissertation, inspired by the literature on the usefulness of eye-trackers to study the cognitive process involved in problem solving activities, we perform a mapping study and evaluate all research relevant to the use of eye-tracking technique in software engineering. The results motivate us to perform a set of eye-tracking studies to analyze the impact of two important factors on program comprehension: representation type (textual vs. graphical) and developers’ gender. Moreover, we investigate and compare viewing strategies variability amongst developers to understand how the representation type and gender differences influence viewing strategies. Overall, our results indicate that structured text provides more cognitive support for developers while performing program comprehension with small systems compared to a graphical representation. Developers spend less time and effort working with textual representations. However, developers mostly preferred to use graphical representations and our results confirm that the topological structure of graphical representations helps developers to memorize the location of the elements and to find the relevant ones faster in comparison with textual representation. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the representation guides developers to follow specific viewing strategies while working with representations. Regarding the impact of gender, our results emphasize that male and female developers exploit different viewing strategies while reading source code or recalling the names of identifiers. Female developers seem to carefully weigh all options and rule out wrong answers, while male developers seem to quickly set their minds on some answers and move forward. Moreover, female developers spend more time on each source code entity and analyze it before going to the next one. In contrast, male developers utilize several attention switching strategies between different source code entities

Self-efficacy and engagement as predictors of student programming performance: An international perspective

High attrition and failure rates are a common phenomenon in introductory programming courses and are a major concern since course instructors are not able to successfully teach novice programmers the fundamental concepts of computer programming and equip them with skills to code solutions to programming problems. Existing solutions that attempt to minimise the high failure and attrition rates have had little impact on improving the performance of the novice programmers. However, the behaviour of the novice programmer has received little attention from introductory programming course instructors although the literature on learning theory suggests that self-efficacy and engagement are two behavioural factors that affect a student’s performance. This study fills the gap in existing research by examining the effect of programming self-efficacy on the engagement of novice programmers, and the effect of their engagement on their programming performance. A research model that proposes a link between programming self-efficacy and the indicators of engagement that are specific to the context of introductory programming courses, and a link between the indicators of engagement to the programming performance of the novice programmer was developed. A three-phased mixed methods approach which consists of two survey questionnaires and focus groups was used to validate the research model. Data was collected in New Zealand and in Malaysia with 433 novice programmers participating in the survey questionnaires while 4 focus groups were held to refine and validate the indicators of engagement in introductory programming courses. The findings of the focus groups confirmed that participation, help-seeking, persistence, effort, deep learning, surface learning, trial and error, interest, and enjoyment were indicators of engagement while gratification emerged as a new indicator of engagement in introductory programming courses. The data from the survey questionnaires were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This study found that the programming self-efficacy beliefs of novice programmers had a strong influence on their engagement behaviour with the exception of help-seeking, while effort, enjoyment, deep learning, and surface learning were predictors of programming performance. These findings have implications for introductory programming course instructors and the recommendations emerging from this study include making clear behavioural expectations, designing courses which stimulate and support effective behaviour, and making novice programmers aware of the engagement behaviour that does not lead to better programming performance. This study contributes to the theory of teaching computer programming, and to the practice of designing and delivering introductory programming courses

Visual attention tracking during program debugging

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a study which compared two tools for tracking the focus of visual attention -a remote eye tracker and the Restricted Focus Viewer (RFV). The RFV tool blurs the stimuli in order to simulate human vision; the user controls the portion of the screen which is in focus with a computer mouse. Both tools were used by eighteen participants debugging three Java programs for ten minutes each. T he results in terms of debugging accuracy and debugging behavior were compared using the restricting view condition of the RFV and a measuring tool as factors. The results show that while the debugging performance and the distribution of the time spent on areas of interest (AOI) are not influenced by the restricting view condition, the dynamics of programming behavior is different. The number of switches between the AOIs as measured by the RFV significantly differed from those measured by the eye tracker. Also the number of switches under the restricted and unrestricted RFV condition was significantly different. We maintain that the RFV must be used with caution to measure the switches of visual attention