An Analysis of HTML and CSS Syntax Errors in a Web Development Course
An Analysis of HTML and CSS Syntax Errors in a Web Development Course
复制标题
Web开发课程中HTML和CSS语法错误分析
DOI：
10.1145/2700514
复制
发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Andrea Forte
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Thomas H. Park;Brian Dorn;Andrea Forte
许多人第一次接触代码是通过 Web 开发，但对于初学者在这些形成性经历中面临的障碍却知之甚少。在本文中，我们描述了一项针对计算机专业和普通教育学生参加网络开发入门课程的本科生的研究。使用课程最初几周收集的数据，我们调查了他们在学习 HTML 和 CSS 时所犯的语法错误的性质，以及他们如何解决这些错误。这是通过部署 openHTML 来实现的，openHTML 是一个轻量级的基于 Web 的代码编辑器，用于记录用户活动。我们的分析表明，几乎所有学生都犯了语法错误，这些错误在他们的评估中仍未解决，并且这些错误在课程开始后的几周内仍然持续存在。这些错误中大约 20% 与相对复杂的规则系统有关，该系统规定 HTML 元素相互嵌套何时有效。另一方面，35% 的错误与确定 HTML 元素嵌套方式的相对简单的标记语法有关。我们还发现验证在解决错误方面发挥了关键作用：虽然大多数未解决的错误都存在于未经测试的代码中，但几乎所有通过验证检测到的错误最终都得到了纠正。最后我们讨论了我们的发现及其对计算机教育的影响。
Many people are first exposed to code through web development, yet little is known about the barriers beginners face in these formative experiences. In this article, we describe a study of undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory web development course taken by both computing majors and general education students. Using data collected during the initial weeks of the course, we investigate the nature of the syntax errors they make when learning HTML and CSS, and how they resolve them. This is accomplished through the deployment of openHTML, a lightweight web-based code editor that logs user activity. Our analysis reveals that nearly all students made syntax errors that remained unresolved in their assessments, and that these errors continued weeks into the course. Approximately 20% of these errors related to the relatively complex system of rules that dictates when it is valid for HTML elements to be nested in one another. On the other hand, 35% of errors related to the relatively simple tag syntax determining how HTML elements are nested. We also find that validation played a key role in resolving errors: While the majority of unresolved errors were present in untested code, nearly all of the errors that were detected through validation were eventually corrected. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and their implications for computing education.