CRII: CHS: Improving Code Readability with Scalable Feedback on Students' Code Structure

该项目将对初学者和专家在编写高质量代码时所使用的思维过程、策略和方法的差异进行一系列试点研究。这些研究将在犹他大学以及不同的合作机构的课堂上进行。目标是最终开发工具和教学方法来帮助新手变得更像专家（具体来说，通过编写遵循已知话语规则的代码）。特别是，该项目将确定如何更好地帮助本科生学习编写易于他人阅读、维护、测试和调试的代码。当大学生学习编程时，他们主要关注的是代码的功能。然而，在专业设置中，代码不仅要工作，而且要易于他人阅读和维护，这一点至关重要。这个项目将(1)调查哪些编码模式会损害可读性或可维护性在本科生中是常见的；(2)开发一种检测这些模式的自动化系统；(3)探索这些模式的实践和指导如何帮助学生学习编写更具可读性的代码。本研究旨在改善大学生计算机科学教育，促进劳动力发展。该项目将研究违反普遍接受的编程话语规则的单个方法中的代码结构（例如，在if块及其相应的else块中重复代码，而不是分解出共同的步骤）。该项目将调查教育工作者和实践者，以确定哪些话语规则违反对他们来说是重要的，并将看到哪些模式在学生的代码中是常见的。学生将接受调查，以检查他们对代码可读性的看法。书面评估将决定学生的偏好与他们理解、编写和编辑代码的能力之间的关系。该项目将开发一种工具，通过静态和动态分析来检测目标模式。这个工具将在学生完成作业时标记出他们代码中的模式，并提供提示和建议。该工具的功效和效果将在实验室实验和常规课堂环境中进行测试。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project is to conduct a series of pilot studies on the differences in thought processes, strategies, and approaches that novices and experts use in writing high-quality code. These studies are to be undertaken in classrooms at the University of Utah as well as at a diverse set of partner institutions. The goal is to ultimately develop tools and pedagogical methods to help novices become more like experts (specifically, by writing code that follows known discourse rules). In particular, the project will determine how to better help undergraduate students learn to write code that is easy for others to read, maintain, test, and debug. When undergraduate students learn to program, they mostly focus on what the code does. However, in professional settings, it is crucial that code not just work, but also be easy for others to read and maintain. This project will (1) investigate which coding patterns that harm readability or maintainability are common among undergraduate students; (2) develop an automated system for detecting these patterns; (3) explore how practice and instruction on these patterns can help students learn to write code that is more readable. This research aims to improve undergraduate computer science education and promote workforce development.This project will investigate code structures within individual methods that violate commonly-accepted discourse rules for programming (e.g., repeating code within an if-block and its corresponding else-block rather than factoring out the common steps). This project will survey educators and practitioners to determine which discourse rule violations are important to them, and will see which patterns are common in students' code. Students will be surveyed to examine their perceptions of code readability. Written assessments will determine how students' preferences are related to their abilities to comprehend, write, and edit code. This project will develop a tool to detect the target patterns with static and dynamic analysis. This tool will flag the patterns in students' code as they work on assignments, and will offer hints and suggestions. The efficacy and effectiveness of the tool will be tested in a lab-based experiment and in regular classroom settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.