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A case study of the static analysis of the quality of novice student programs

Published:01 March 1999Publication History
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Abstract

Helping students to understand the quality of their programs is a difficult task hampered by the time instructors have for grading. When the number of programs to grade are in the hundreds, instructors may be able to handle dynamic analysis of the programs and possibly a cursory glance at the code itself. Automated solutions may appear attractive, but few exist in the literature. Further, not enough examples exist to help instructors choose what metrics would be useful for helping students to visualize how they program. In this study, a collection of static metrics data obtained with Verilog Logiscope is correlated to an estimate of program quality to determine which metrics would show students at least the instructor's idea of quality. The study results are encouraging and show that definite correlations exist so that static analysis is a viable methodology for assessing student work. Further work is considered to help to confirm the study's results and their practical application.

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  1. A case study of the static analysis of the quality of novice student programs

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        • Published in

          cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
          ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 31, Issue 1
          March 1999
          370 pages
          ISSN:0097-8418
          DOI:10.1145/384266
          Issue’s Table of Contents
          • cover image ACM Conferences
            SIGCSE '99: The proceedings of the thirtieth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
            March 1999
            383 pages
            ISBN:1581130856
            DOI:10.1145/299649
            • Chairmen:
            • Jane Prey,
            • Bob Noonan

          Copyright © 1999 ACM

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          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 1 March 1999

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