Decoding Source Code Comprehension: Bottlenecks Experienced by Senior Computer Science Students
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- Last edited 15 days ago by Peter Riegler
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Abstract
Source code comprehension (SCC) continues to be a challenge to undergraduate CS students. Understanding the mental processes that students follow while comprehending source code can be crucial in helping students to overcome related challenges. The ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ (DtDs) paradigm that is gaining popularity world-wide provides a process to help students to master the mental actions they need to be successful in a specific discipline. In focusing on the first DtDs step of identifying mental obstacles (“bottlenecks”), this paper describes a study aimed at uncovering the major SCC bottlenecks that senior CS students experienced. We followed an integrated methodological approach where data were collected by asking questions, observations, and artefact analysis. Thematic analysis of the collected data revealed a series of SCC difficulties specifically related to arrays, programming logic, and control structures. The identified difficulties, including findings from the literature as well as our own teaching experiences, were used to compile a usable list of SCC bottlenecks. By focusing on senior students (instead of first-year students), the identified SCC bottlenecks point to learning difficulties that need to be addressed in introductory CS courses.
Bibliographic data
Khomokhoana, P.J., Nel, L. (2020). Decoding Source Code Comprehension: Bottlenecks Experienced by Senior Computer Science Students. In: Tait, B., Kroeze, J., Gruner, S. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1136. Springer, Cham.