A guessing measure of program comprehension

An effective comprehension measure could be helpful in ranking programs on complexity. Measures involving filling in missing parts of a program can be adapted from the prose domain. For example, cloze tests have been applied to software. We evaluated a new measure based on a fill-in-the-blank exerci...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of human-computer studies 1995-03, Vol.42 (3), p.245-263
Main Author: Davis, J.Steve
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Complexity
Computer science
control theory
systems
Evaluation
Exact sciences and technology
Software
Software engineering
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An effective comprehension measure could be helpful in ranking programs on complexity. Measures involving filling in missing parts of a program can be adapted from the prose domain. For example, cloze tests have been applied to software. We evaluated a new measure based on a fill-in-the-blank exercise conducted by an automated tool. The subject is asked to guess certain characters which are missing from a sample program which is displayed on a computer screen. The value of the measure is derived on an information-theoretic basis from the number of incorrect guesses. This measure has shown promise in experimental evaluations of its ability to measure program comprehension.
ISSN:1071-5819
1095-9300
DOI:10.1006/ijhc.1995.1012