• Author(s): Johan Brinch
• Supervisor(s): Jakob G. Simonsen, Mikkel Rønne
• Link: brinchj-2011_eye.pdf

Abstract:

I design an experiment with focus on novice programmers and their ability to read program code. I execute this experiment using first year students and their tutors as participants. Specifically, the experiment consists of 15 tasks and involved 12 SML students, 4 SML tutors and 3 Python students.

I provide the necessary tools for creating a similar experiment, specifically a graphical user interface to assist code and task presentation, a processing framework for the resulting data that includes a standard fixation filter for eye coordinates and generation of 3 different visualisations to assist interpretation. Specifically, line transitions with and without time, and token density.

During the experiment the developed graphical user interface is used to display program code and collect participant feedback. The data is hereafter processed by the aforementioned framework and the resulting visualisations are presented.

Due to the limitations of this project, I do not interpret these visualisations. I do however provide the data needed for such later analysis.

Keywords

eye tracking, SML, Python