Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale

Current traditional feedback methods, such as hand-grading student code for substance and style, are labor intensive and do not scale. We created a user interface that addresses feedback at scale for a particular and important aspect of code quality: variable names. We built this user interface on t...

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Main Authors: Glassman, Elena L, Fischer, Lyla J, Scott, Jeremy Kenneth, Miller, Robert C
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116536
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5178-3496
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4171-8580
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5319-0595
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0442-691X
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author Glassman, Elena L
Fischer, Lyla J
Scott, Jeremy Kenneth
Miller, Robert C
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Glassman, Elena L
Fischer, Lyla J
Scott, Jeremy Kenneth
Miller, Robert C
author_sort Glassman, Elena L
collection MIT
description Current traditional feedback methods, such as hand-grading student code for substance and style, are labor intensive and do not scale. We created a user interface that addresses feedback at scale for a particular and important aspect of code quality: variable names. We built this user interface on top of an existing back-end that distinguishes variables by their behavior in the program. Therefore our interface not only allows teachers to comment on poor variable names, they can comment on names that mislead the reader about the variable's role in the program. We ran two user studies in which 10 teachers and 6 students created and received feedback, respectively. The interface helped teachers give personalized variable name feedback on thousands of student solutions from an edX introductory programming MOOC. In the second study, students composed solutions to the same programming assignments and immediately received personalized quizzes composed by teachers in the previous user study.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1165362022-10-02T06:32:45Z Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale Glassman, Elena L Fischer, Lyla J Scott, Jeremy Kenneth Miller, Robert C Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Glassman, Elena L Fischer, Lyla J Scott, Jeremy Kenneth Miller, Robert C Current traditional feedback methods, such as hand-grading student code for substance and style, are labor intensive and do not scale. We created a user interface that addresses feedback at scale for a particular and important aspect of code quality: variable names. We built this user interface on top of an existing back-end that distinguishes variables by their behavior in the program. Therefore our interface not only allows teachers to comment on poor variable names, they can comment on names that mislead the reader about the variable's role in the program. We ran two user studies in which 10 teachers and 6 students created and received feedback, respectively. The interface helped teachers give personalized variable name feedback on thousands of student solutions from an edX introductory programming MOOC. In the second study, students composed solutions to the same programming assignments and immediately received personalized quizzes composed by teachers in the previous user study. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Amar Bose Teaching Fellowship) Quanta Computer (Firm) (Qmulus Project) 2018-06-22T19:07:56Z 2018-06-22T19:07:56Z 2015-11 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 9781450337793 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116536 Glassman, Elena L., Lyla Fischer, Jeremy Scott, and Robert C. Miller. “Foobaz.” Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology - UIST ’15 (2015), New York, NY, USA, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2015. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5178-3496 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4171-8580 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5319-0595 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0442-691X en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2807442.2807495 Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology - UIST '15 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Other univ. web domain
spellingShingle Glassman, Elena L
Fischer, Lyla J
Scott, Jeremy Kenneth
Miller, Robert C
Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title_full Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title_fullStr Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title_full_unstemmed Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title_short Foobaz: Variable Name Feedback for Student Code at Scale
title_sort foobaz variable name feedback for student code at scale
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116536
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5178-3496
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4171-8580
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5319-0595
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0442-691X
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