Exploring the impact of planning and design in the development of

programming practiceprogramming practice

Jesús Cáceres Tello

MCCE’08

Programing assignments CS1 courses

E l b d • Theorical part• Early abandonment• Evaluation tracks

• Theorical part• Lab worksEvaluation tracks

– Greater dedication to understand

– Analyzing problemsTreating problems– Treating problems

Lack of a proper, disciplined approach to programming

SolutionsSolutions•• …

• MethodologiesMethodologies• …

• Appreciate and use (design, i d di )review and coding)

• Analysis of daily datay y• Practice disciplined in form of

proccesses (SE courses)proccesses (SE courses)

Methodologygy

P l S ft PPersonal Software Process

• “…guide to a disciplined and structured h t d l i ft ” (SEI)approach to developing software.” (SEI)

• Used in educational contexts (Wohlin y Wesslen, 1998)

• Planing, quality, productivity and cost estimatedestimated

• Scripts -> self-learning and self-assessment

Case StudyCase Study• 60 students of Data Structures course60 students of Data Structures course

– 30 PSP Group– 30 PSP Group– 30 Control Group

• Profile: no introduced to SE processesAssignment ID Objectives Weight Start week End week

ASN1 Definition and management of stacks 30% 1 4

ASN2 Definition and management priority queue 30% 5 9

ASN3 Definition and management of binary trees 40% 10 14

ScriptScript

•Planning•Desing•Coding•Compilation•Testing

Data gathered for each of the assignments.

Data gatheredData gathered

Assignment ID Planning Design Coding Compilation Testing

ASN1 4.5(3.3)

11.5 (5.5)

135.0 (35.9)

44.4 (11.7)

14.2 (8.6)

ASN2 10.1 (3.8)

22.6 (6.8)

105 (37.3)

34.3 (11.0)

18.8 (8.4)

ASN3 15.4 (2.0)

34.2 (6.8)

87.7 (28.8)

27.1 (9.3)

18.3 (4.68)

Time means and standard deviation of each phase. p

Standard deviation 3th assignmentStandard deviation 3th assignment

140160

d at

100120140

mpl

oyed

age

406080

of ti

me

emea

ch s

t

02040

Uni

ts o

00 1 2 3 4 5 6

Stages in the development of Practice

Times spent in each phasesTimes spent in each phases

140

160

100

120140

Planif icación

Diseño

6080

100 Diseño

Codif icación

Compilacion

2040

60 Compilacion

Testeo

0ASN1 ASN2 ASN3

QualificationsQualifications 10

6 388

9

10s 6,385,37

4,38 4,65

6

7

ficat

ions

PSP G4,2 4,3

2

3

4

Qua

lif PSP GroupControl Group

0

1

First Second Third

Pratices

Qualifications obtained by the two study groupsQualifications obtained by the two study groups

Pearson’s correlation coefficientsPearson s correlation coefficients

Assignment ID Planning Design Coding Compilation Testing

ASN1 0.47 0.60 -0.73 -0.47 0.15

ASN2 0.44 0.40 -0.64 -0.43 -0.01

ASN3 0.13 0.30 -0.27 -0.01 -0.22

Coefficients between time spent in each phase and the marks p pobtained by each student

ConclusionsConclusions

• Benefits as a preparation for SE courses• Grades connect time spent in design andGrades connect time spent in design and

planning phases

• Methodologies use not coding quality

• Quality criteria with source code metrics• Quality criteria with source code metrics• Increase the reliability conclusions

Thank youThank you

Jesús Cáceres TelloJesús Cáceres Tello

Dpto. Ciencias de la ComputaciónUniversidad de Alcalá