Expertise-related differences in gaze during code debugging

Abstract

With the growing demand for programming expertise on the labor market, the investigation and optimization of programming education become increasingly relevant. First, this eye-tracking study investigates how experts’ usual gaze patterns differ from those of novices while debugging short computer codes. Second, this study aims to explore how the expert participants change their gaze behavior when being instructed to explain their previous debugging approach didactically. This explorative investigation will help to answer the questions how experts try to make themselves understandable to novices in instructional videos and what features didactic eye movements possess that could guide a learner’s attention