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ERIC Number: EJ1485171
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 40
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1946-6226
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Varying Program Input to Assess Code Reading Skills
ACM Transactions on Computing Education, v25 n3 Article 33 2025
Explain-in-Plain-English (EiPE) questions are used by some researchers and educators to assess code reading skills. EiPE questions require students to briefly explain (in plain English) the purpose of a given piece of code, without restating what the code does line-by-line. The premise is that novices who can explain the purpose of a piece of code have higher code reading skills than those who can trace the code but cannot see its high-level purpose. However, using natural language in EiPE questions poses challenges. Students (especially those whose first language is not English) may struggle to convey their understanding of the code unambiguously. Also, grading responses written in natural language is time-consuming, requires the design of a rubric, and is difficult to automate. We propose a new code reading question type that addresses these issues with EiPE questions. Given a piece of code involving repetition (in the form of iteration or recursion), the student is asked to provide the output for a set of inputs, where the output for some of these inputs cannot be determined using code tracing alone and requires higher-level code comprehension. In empirical evaluations, using CS1 exams, think-aloud interviews with students, and interviews with instructors, we found that assessments of code reading skills using the new question type are highly consistent with the assessments using EiPE questions, yet are more reliable. These results put forward the proposed question type as another way to assess high-level code reading skills without the issues associated with expressing in natural language or grading responses expressed in natural language.
Association for Computing Machinery. 1601 Broadway 10th Floor, New York, NY 10119. Tel: 800-342-6626; Tel: 212-626-0500; Fax: 212-944-1318; e-mail: acmhelp@acm.org; Web site: http://toce.acm.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A