Hi again,
For those interested, you can view the ACE paper through the ACM website
here:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1151898
Alternatively, I will mail you a copy of the paper if you wish. Just
ask.
I am currently writing up my PhD (sigh), and as such I will be
submitting one chapter as a journal paper during this process. However,
if anyone would like further discussion, feel free to contact me, or
maybe we'll meet up at a future conference.
Regards,
Des Traynor
On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 14:11 +0000, Des Traynor wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> For My PhD I performed a multi-institutional study on the ability of
> students to read and write code, with the goal of identifying suitable
> assessment exercises to give a good indication of a students programming
> ability.
>
> What I found was that many students can simulate an ability to write
> code, by learning off template solutions (i.e. all array questions will
> require code that *looks* like this...
> ---------------------------------
> for (int i=0;i<array.length;i++)
> {
> if (Condition)
> {
> // do one thing
> }
> else {
> // do the other
> }
> }
> -------------------------------------
>
> So these students will always look like they can write some code, but in
> reality, are only capable of rote learning.
>
> In my study these students were incapable of comprehending simple code
> snippets, and calculating their output.
>
> So in short, I have found that some students can score reasonably in the
> "code writing", due to shoddy marking schemes, yet will always fail
> comprehension questions where the student must understand all the
> operators and basic rules of programming.
>
>
> My most recent paper on this study is still in heavy draft as it
> involves indepth qualitative analysis of these issues (I interviewed 35
> students as part of the study), however I had a paper in ACE 2006 which
> will provide more data.
>
> Regards,
>
> Des Traynor
>
>
> On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 14:56 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I have just had my paper entitled "Spatial skills and navigation of source
> > code" accepted for the ITiCSE conference. One of the questions I have been
> > asked is if spatial ability correlates with program development ability, an
> > area not looked at in my study (I focussed on program
> > comprehension/reading).
> >
> > Does anyone know of any work showing correlations between the ability to
> > read and write code? And if there is any work to show a relationship
> > between WRITING code and navigational/spatial ability?
> >
> > Thanks very much,
> >
> > Sue
> >
> >
> >
> >
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