Code Quality in the K-12 classroom and its impact on Comprehensibility, Modifiability, and Debugging

About the project

Despite decades of research into teaching programming skills in computing education, learning to program is still a major challenge for learners. A key problem is finding and correcting errors (debugging), which is a major hurdle and can be frustrating in many cases.

Successful debugging requires both understanding the source code to identify errors and modifying the program to fix them. Although research has already shown that both understanding and modifying source code is hampered by poor code quality, code quality is rarely considered when learning to program.

The aim of this project is therefore to investigate the influence of code quality on debugging processes. This should not only help to reduce frustration, but also make it easier to learn programming.

Publications

Gutmann, V., Starke, E., & Michaeli T. (2023). Investigating Code Smells in K-12 Students' Programming Projects: Impact on Comprehensibility and Modifiability In: Local Proceedings of ISSEP 2023. The 16th International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution and Perspectives (ISSEP 2023).

Starke, E., & Michaeli, T. (2023). Towards Fostering Code Quality in K-12: Insights from a Literature Review. In: The 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research (WiPSCE '23), ACM, 2023

Starke, E., & Michaeli, T. (2023). Softwarequalität im Informatikunterricht? Eine Auswertung nationaler und internationaler Curricula. In: 20. GI-Fachtagung Informatik und Schule, Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn, 2023