Tapping into tacit programming knowledge

ABSTRACT

The Cognition and Programming Group at Yale University is engaged in two complementary efforts: 1. exploring the programming process empirically, paying special attention to the knowledge and strategies which expert and non-experts employ, and 2. building computer-based environments which aid novices learning to program. In this extended abstract we will focus on the empirical strand of our research program; in particular, we will describe an experimental technique we have just begun to use to more carefully study what it is that expert and novice programmers do—and don't—know. In [19, 20, 22, 18, 7] we describe additional empirical studies, while [21] describes MENO-II, our intelligent programming tutor for Pascal.

REFERENCES

• 1: Adelson, B. Problem Solving and the Development of Abstract Categories in Programming Languages. Memory and Cognition 9 (1981), 422-433.
• 2: Atwood, M.E., Ramsey, H.R. Cognitive Structure in the Comprehension and Memory of Computer Programs: An Investigation of Computer Program Debugging. ARI TR-78-A210, Science Applications, Englewood, Calif., 1978.
• 3: Bower, G.H., Black, J.B., Turner, T. Scripts in Memory for Text. Cognitive Psychology 11 (19793), 177-220.
• 4: Brown, J.S. and Burton, R.R. Diagnostic Models for Procedural Bugs in Mathematics. Cognitive Science 2 (June 1978), 155-192.
• 5: Brown, J.S. and VanLehn, K. Repair Theory: A Generative Theory of Bugs in Procedural Skills. Cognitive Science 4, 4 (October 1980), 379-426.
• 6: Chase, W.C. and Simon, H. Perception in Chess. Cognitive Psychology 4 (1973), 55-81.
• 7: John Clement , Jack Lochhead , Elliot Soloway, Positive effects of computer programming on students understanding of variables and equations, Proceedings of the ACM 1980 annual conference, p.467-474, January 1980 [doi>10.1145/800176.810002]
• 8: Collins, A. Explicating the Tacit Knowledge in Teaching and Learning. 3889, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Mass., 1978.
• 9: deGroot, A.D. Thought and Choice in Chess. Mouton and Company, Paris, 1965.
• 10: Ericsson, A. and Simon, H. Verbal reports as data. Psychological Review 87 (1980), 215-251.
• 11: Allen Newell, Human Problem Solving, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1972
• 12: Rich, C. A Library of Plans with Applications to Automated Analysis. 294, MIT AI Lab, 1980.
• 13: Rich, C. A Formal Representation for Plans in the Programmer's Apprentice. Proceedings of IJCAI-81, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, B.C., 1981.
• 14: Schank, R.C. and Abelson, R. Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale New Jersey, 1977.
• 15: Sebrechts, M.M. and Black, J.B. Software Psychology: A Rich New Domain for Applied Psychology. Applied Psycholinguistics, in press
• 16: Shneiderman, B. Exploratory Experiments in Programmer Behavior. International Journal of Computer and Information Sciences 5,2 (1976), 123-143.
• 17: Elliot M. Soloway , Beverly Woolf, Problems, plans, and programs, Proceedings of the eleventh SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.16-24, February 14-15, 1980, Kansas City, Missouri, United States
• 18: Soloway, E., Lochhead, J., Clement, J. Does Computer Programming Enhance Problem Solving Ability? Some Positive Evidence on Algebra Word Problems. Proceedings of the Conference on National Goals for Computer Literacy in 1985, NSF/HumRRO, Ed. R. Seidel, in press
• 19: Soloway, E., Bonar, J. and Ehrlich, K. Cognitive Factors in Programming: An Empirical Study of Looping Constructs. 81-10, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, 1981.
• 20: Soloway, E., Bonar, J., Woolf, B., Barth, P., Rubin, E., and Ehrlich, K. Cognition and programming: Why Your Students Write Those Crazy Programs. Proceedings of the National Educational Computing Conference, NECC, No. Denton, Tx., 1981.
• 21: Soloway, E., Woolf, B., Barth, P., and Rubin, E. MENO-II: Catching Run-Time Errors in Novice's Pascal Programs. Proceedings of IJCAI-81, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, B.C., 1981.
• 22: Soloway, E., Ehrlich, K., Bonar, J., Greenspan, J. What Do Novices Know About Programming?. In Directions in Human-Computer Interactions, B. Shneiderman and A. Badre, Eds., Ablex, Inc. in press.
• 23: Waters, R.C. A Method for Analyzing Loop Programs. IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering SE-5 (May 1979), 237-247.
• 24: Young, R., O'Shea, T. Errors in Children's Subtraction. Cognitive Science, in press

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.6 Programming Environments

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Software psychology

General Terms:
Performance