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An inquisitive code editor for addressing novice programmers' misconceptions of program behavior

Authors:

Austin Z. Henley,

Benjamin Klein,

Dylan LeeAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE-JSEET '21: Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Joint Track on Software Engineering Education and Training

Pages 165 - 170

https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00026

Published: 17 December 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Novice programmers face numerous barriers while attempting to learn how to code that may deter them from pursuing a computer science degree or career in software development. In this work, we propose a tool concept to address the particularly challenging barrier of novice programmers holding misconceptions about how their code behaves. Specifically, the concept involves an inquisitive code editor that: (1) identifies misconceptions by periodically prompting the novice programmer with questions about their program's behavior, (2) corrects the misconceptions by generating explanations based on the program's actual behavior, and (3) prevents further misconceptions by inserting test code and utilizing other educational resources. We have implemented portions of the concept as plugins for the Atom code editor and conducted informal surveys with students and instructors. Next steps include deploying the tool prototype to students enrolled in introductory programming courses.

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Cited By

Tao YChen WYe QZhao YRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MGama KSiegmund J(2024)Beyond Functional Correctness: An Exploratory Study on the Time Efficiency of Programming AssignmentsProceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3639474.3640065(320-330)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639474.3640065
Gonçalves JSantos ALaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Jinter: A Hint Generation System for Java ExercisesProceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3587102.3588820(375-381)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3587102.3588820
Lehtinen THaaranen LLeinonen J(2023)Automated Questionnaires About Students’ JavaScript Programs: Towards Gauging Novice Programming ProcessesProceedings of the 25th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3576123.3576129(49-58)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576123.3576129
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

An inquisitive code editor for addressing novice programmers' misconceptions of program behavior
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
2. Software and its engineering

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE-JSEET '21: Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Joint Track on Software Engineering Education and Training

May 2021

317 pages

ISBN:9780738133201

Conference Chairs:
Hakan Erdogmus
Carnegie Mellon University
,
Ana M. Moreno
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

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SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

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IEEE Press

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Published: 17 December 2021

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ICSE '21: 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering

May 25 - 28, 2021

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2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

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Cited By

Tao YChen WYe QZhao YRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MGama KSiegmund J(2024)Beyond Functional Correctness: An Exploratory Study on the Time Efficiency of Programming AssignmentsProceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3639474.3640065(320-330)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639474.3640065
Gonçalves JSantos ALaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Jinter: A Hint Generation System for Java ExercisesProceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3587102.3588820(375-381)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3587102.3588820
Lehtinen THaaranen LLeinonen J(2023)Automated Questionnaires About Students’ JavaScript Programs: Towards Gauging Novice Programming ProcessesProceedings of the 25th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3576123.3576129(49-58)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576123.3576129
Boubekeur YSingh PMussbacher GKühn TSousa V(2022)A DSL and model transformations to specify learning corpora for modeling assistantsProceedings of the 25th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3550356.3556502(95-102)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3550356.3556502
Horvath AMyers BMacvean ARahman I(2022)Using Annotations for Sensemaking About CodeProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545667(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3526113.3545667
Jayagopal DLubin JChasins S(2022)Exploring the Learnability of Program Synthesizers by Novice ProgrammersProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545659(1-15)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3526113.3545659
Santos ASoares TGarrido NLehtinen TBecker BQuille KLaakso MBarendsen ESimon (2022)JaskProceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 110.1145/3502718.3524761(117-123)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3502718.3524761

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