Identifying and Addressing the Gap Between How Students and Professionals Read Code

Abstract

This project investigated and addressed the questions of: a) how do students and professional software developers read novel codebases, and b) how can we help students learn to better read code. Our Spring 2023 study, seen in Appendix A, used semi-structured interviews and code reading exercises to identify and quantify several differences in the ways students and professional software developers read novel codebases. Students tended to face more difficulty with these reading tasks than the professionals due to an apparent lack of structured code reading process and an over reliance on making unverified assumptions about the code. We focused on three particular anti-patterns. Our interview data also indicated that the lack of a structured code reading process complicates transitioning into a professional atmosphere post degree, requiring new professional software developers to learn these skills on the job. Based upon the results, we developed a module to teach students a structured way to read code in novel codebases, and to assess their improvement. The module was integrated into the Fall 2023 quarter of CSS 390 (Software Engineering Studio). Students worked their way through a variety of formative exercises leading up to a final summative assessment where they were evaluated on their performance improvement throughout the module as well as how they compared to a prior group of students given a similar assessment in the Spring quarter. Comparing the number of code reading anti-patterns exhibited by both groups, we found that the students who completed the module were much less likely to trace into files outside of the code path, were more likely to follow all stack traces in a code reading challenge, and were less likely to make uncorrected misinterpretations about a codebase.