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Debugging: the good, the bad, and the quirky -- a qualitative analysis of novices' strategies

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Carol ZanderAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

Pages 163 - 167

https://doi.org/10.1145/1352135.1352191

Published: 12 March 2008 Publication History

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Abstract

A qualitative analysis of debugging strategies of novice Java programmers is presented. The study involved 21 CS2 students from seven universities in the U.S. and U.K. Subjects "warmed up" by coding a solution to a typical introductory problem. This was followed by an exercise debugging a syntactically correct version with logic errors. Many novices found and fixed bugs using strategies such as tracing, commenting out code, diagnostic print statements and methodical testing. Some competently used online resources and debuggers. Students also used pattern matching to detect errors in code that "just didn't look right". However, some used few strategies, applied them ineffectively, or engaged in other unproductive behaviors. This led to poor performance, frustration for some, and occasionally the introduction of new bugs. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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P?durean VDenny PSingla AStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)BugSpotter: Automated Generation of Code Debugging ExercisesProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701974(896-902)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
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Wilkin GStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)"Debugging: From Art to Science" A Case Study on a Debugging Course and Its Impact on Student Performance and ConfidenceProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701893(1225-1231)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
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Pirelli SRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MGama KSiegmund J(2024)Scalable Teaching of Software Engineering Theory and Practice: An Experience ReportProceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3639474.3640053(286-296)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
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Debugging: the good, the bad, and the quirky -- a qualitative analysis of novices' strategies
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

March 2008

606 pages

ISBN:9781595937995

DOI:10.1145/1352135

General Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Susan Rodger
Duke University
,
Program Chairs:
Sue Fitzgerald
Metropolitan State University
,
Mark Guzdial
Georgia Institute of Technology

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 40, Issue 1
SIGCSE 08
March 2008
549 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1352322
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 12 March 2008

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SIGCSE '08: The 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 12 - 15, 2008

OR, Portland, USA

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P?durean VDenny PSingla AStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)BugSpotter: Automated Generation of Code Debugging ExercisesProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701974(896-902)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701974
Wilkin GStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)"Debugging: From Art to Science" A Case Study on a Debugging Course and Its Impact on Student Performance and ConfidenceProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701893(1225-1231)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701893
Pirelli SRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey MGama KSiegmund J(2024)Scalable Teaching of Software Engineering Theory and Practice: An Experience ReportProceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3639474.3640053(286-296)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639474.3640053
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Reichl JHanenberg SGruhn VGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)Does the Stream API Benefit from Special Debugging Facilities? A Controlled Experiment on Loops and Streams with Specific DebuggersProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00058(576-588)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
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Rein PBeckmann TGeier LMattis THirschfeld RScholliers CSinger J(2022)Competitive Debugging: Toward Contests Promoting Debugging as a SkillProceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3563835.3567665(172-184)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
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Li AEndres MWeimer WPéraire CSerebrenik A(2022)Debugging with stack overflowProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1145/3510456.3514147(69-81)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
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Li AEndres MWeimer W(2022)Debugging with Stack Overflow: Web Search Behavior in Novice and Expert Programmers2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET)10.1109/ICSE-SEET55299.2022.9794240(69-81)Online publication date: May-2022
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Garcia RLiao CPearce A(2022)Read the Debug Manual: A Debugging Manual for CS1 Students2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962675(1-7)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2022
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