Active Debugger: ITS to Teach C++ Comprehension Skills

Abstract

Active Debugger is an ITS that is deigned to teach C++ comprehension skills based on constraint-based methodology. Students are asked to explain the changes that take place in the memory for a given C++ program. Students have the freedom to ask for feedback at any point in the program. When the feedback is requested, the correct solution is dynamically generated until the line of code that a student has attempted. This solution is used to evaluate the student attempt together with the constraint-base. This generated-solution can also be viewed as a simulation to understand the changes that occur in memory after each line of code. An initial study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the system in learning C++ comprehension. This study involved authentic students in a computer science undergraduate course. Results revealed a positive trend towards learning. Further evaluations needs to be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.