EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF DEBUGGING PROCESSES OF COMPUTER PROGRAMS BY STUDENTS USING PROCESS MINING
Keywords:
Process Mining, отладка, Visual Studio, эксперимент, шаблон отладки, обучение программированиюAbstract
Understanding how students debug programs and what problems they encounter is important for improving the quality of programming instruction. The processes of debugging computer programs are analyzed in order to improve the quality of students' programming instruction. An example of assessing students' debugging behavior and skills is described. The process of debugging program text is considered as a sequence of actions when working with tools in the development environment. To identify the debugging skills, the method of error-sowing is applied. Programs with typical logical errors were developed. An experiment was conducted in which the actions of 41 developers performing debugging were evaluated. As part of the experiment, students had to solve typical logical errors using the Visual Studio integrated development environment. The actions of each developer in completing the tasks were tracked. Debugging process models were generated using Process Mining methods. Based on the obtained models of debugging processes and most frequent sessions it was possible to identify 4 patterns of behavior of the experiment's participants. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of Process Mining for a better understanding of how developers approach the debugging task. The Visual Studio debugger features were found to be used, unsatisfactorily. Participants who did not use the debugging tools instead used trial and error and used the display of values on the screen. These results call for more hands-on debugging experiences in the training programs. The instrumental and organizational tools for teaching students to debug in software engineering courses require further development.
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