Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions

Eduardo Oliveira; Hieke Keuning; Johan Jeuring

doi:10.1145/3587102.3588840

Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions

Eduardo Oliveira, Hieke Keuning, Johan Jeuring

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Teaching students to develop code of good quality is important. Refactoring -- rewriting a program into a semantically equivalent program of better quality -- is a common technique to improve code quality. It is therefore relevant for students to learn about refactoring, even for the smaller programs they write as beginners. However, students make mistakes when refactoring programs. Some of these mistakes appear often, and might be caused by misconceptions they have. In this paper, we investigate common student code refactoring misconceptions. We do this by analyzing log data containing program snapshots of students working on refactoring exercises in a tutoring system. We manually inspect all transitions from a correct program state to an incorrect state. We then use grounded theory to identify and categorize misconceptions students might have when refactoring programs. As a result, this work (1) defines the concept of refactoring misconception, and (2) provides an initial list of 25 such misconceptions, together with an accompanying website with full details.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1
Place of Publication	New York, NY, USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	19–25
Number of pages	7
ISBN (Electronic)	9798400701382
ISBN (Print)	9798400701382
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3587102.3588840
Publication status	Published - 30 Jun 2023

Publication series

Name	Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE
Volume	1
ISSN (Print)	1942-647X

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 ACM.

Keywords

code quality
code refactoring
grounded theory
misconceptions
program snapshot analysis
programming education
student code refactoring misconceptions

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10.1145/3587102.3588840

3587102.3588840Final published version, 0.99 MBLicence: Taverne

Cite this

Oliveira, E., Keuning, H., & Jeuring, J. (2023). Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions. In ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 19–25). (Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE; Vol. 1). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3587102.3588840

Oliveira, Eduardo ; Keuning, Hieke ; Jeuring, Johan. / Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions. ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. New York, NY, USA : Association for Computing Machinery, 2023. pp. 19–25 (Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE).

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Oliveira, E , Keuning, H & Jeuring, J 2023, Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions. in ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE, vol. 1, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, pp. 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3587102.3588840

Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions. / Oliveira, Eduardo ; Keuning, Hieke ; Jeuring, Johan.
ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2023. p. 19–25 (Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE; Vol. 1).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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Oliveira E , Keuning H , Jeuring J. Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions. In ITiCSE 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education: Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. 2023. p. 19–25. (Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE). doi: 10.1145/3587102.3588840

Student Code Refactoring Misconceptions

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Keywords

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