Object-oriented program comprehension: Effect of expertise, task and phase

被引：59

作者：

Burkhardt J.-M. ^{[1
,2
]}

Détienne F. ^{[1
]}

Wiedenbeck S. ^{[3
]}

机构：

[1] Eiffel Group, Cognition and Cooperation in Design, INRIA Domaine de Voluceau, Le Chesnay, Cedex 78153, Rocquencourt

[2] Université Paris, Paris 75005

[3] College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University Philadelphia

来源：

Empirical Software Engineering | 2002年 / 7卷 / 2期

关键词：

Expertise; Mental representation; Object-oriented programming; Program comprehension; Program model; Situation model; Text comprehension;

D O I：

10.1023/A:1015297914742

中图分类号：

学科分类号：

摘要：

The goal of our study is to evaluate the effect on program comprehension of three factors that have not previously been studied in a single experiment. These factors are programmer expertise (expert versus novice), programming task (documentation versus reuse), and the development of understanding over time (phase 1 versus phase 2). This study is carried out in the context of the mental model approach to comprehension based on van Dijk and Kintsch's model [(1983) Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York: Academic]. One key aspect of this model is the distinction between two kinds of representation the reader might construct from a text: (1) the textbase, which refers to what is said in the text and how it is said, and (2) the situation model, which represents the situation referred to by the text. We have evaluated the effect of the three factors mentioned above on the development of both the textbase (or program model) and the situation model in object-oriented program comprehension. We found a four-way interaction of expertise, phase, task and type of model. For the documentation group we found that experts and novices differ in the elaboration of their situation model but not their program model. There was no interaction of expertise with phase and type of model in the documentation group. For the reuse group, there was a three-way interaction between phase, expertise and type of model. For the novice reuse group, the effect of the phase was to increase the construction of the situation model but not the program model. With respect to the task, our results show that novices do not spontaneously construct a strong situation model but are able to do so if the task demands it.

引用

页码：115 / 156

页数：41

共 61 条

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