The project entitled, “Analysis of Novice Programmer Tracing and Debugging Skills using Eye Tracking Data” has been granted research funding under the Research and Innovation for Success in Education (RISE) Program of the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC). This study will contribute to the body of literature about novice programmer cognition, learning strategies, and debugging strategies as well as to novice programmer education by helping establish expert patterns of parsing code that can then inform instructors about how to teach novices how to read and trace through code fragments. The addition of the eye-tracking component develops local expertise in the collection, analysis and interpretation of eye-tracking data. Because the technology is not yet widely used for this type of research, it has a high potential to lead to new contributions and collaborations in other areas of research.
The study will be conducted in collaboration with the Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU), Ateneo de Naga University (ADNU), University of Cordillera (UC), University of San Carlos (USC), and the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP), funded by the PEAC and Loyola Schools (LS).
