Object-Oriented Program Comprehension: Effect of Expertise, Task and Phase. Submitted for Publication

Object-Oriented Program Comprehension: Effect of Expertise, Task and Phase. Submitted for Publication (1999)

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by Jean-marie Burkhardt

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TITLE	Object-Oriented Program Comprehension: Effect of Expertise, Task and Phase. Submitted for Publication	INFERENCE
AUTHOR NAME	Jean-marie Burkhardt	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
AUTHOR AFFIL	; Eiffel Group, ‘‘Cognition and Cooperation in Design’ ’ INRIA Domaine de Voluceau, Rocquencourt, BP 105,; Eiffel Group, ‘‘Cognition and Cooperation in Design’ ’ INRIA Domaine de Voluceau, Rocquencourt, BP 105,	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
AUTHOR ADDR	; 78153, Le Chesnay, cedex, France; Universite ´ Paris 5 Rene ´ Descartes 45 rue des Saint Pe`res 75005 Paris, France; 78153, Le Chesnay, cedex, France; College of Information Science and Technology Drexel University Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
ABSTRACT	Abstract. 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.	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
YEAR	1999	INFERENCE
VENUE TYPE	JOURNAL	INFERENCE
PAGES	52--63	INFERENCE
VOLUME	7	INFERENCE
CITATIONS	66 found	ParsCit 1.0