A Comparative Study of High and Low Performing Students’ Visual Effort and Attention When Identifying Syntax Errors

Abstract

Debugging is an important skill to learn for novice programmers and since compiler error messages are instrumental to the debugging process, investigating how novice programmers read and process these messages has become a subject of interest among computer science education researchers. Prior studies were valuable because they identified differences in the visual attention patterns of high and low performers and of experts and novices. They were, however, subject to certain limitations. In this study, we attempted to bridge these gaps by continuing the study of Rodrigo and Tablatin [18] and Tablatin and Rodrigo [21]. Using the methodology detailed in Rodrigo & Tablatin [18], we investigated how student programmers process literal and non-literal syntax errors embedded in Java and C++ programs. The analysis of eye tracking data collected from participants of two schools revealed a variation in visual effort and attention patterns of high and low performers. We conclude that low performance is not always associated with low visual attention. The novice programmer code comprehension errors may be rooted in other causes such as tracing and debugging strategies that students use, cognitive skills, individual preference of learning and programming experience. These factors are out of scope for this paper but may be the subject of future work.