Development of a Check Sheet for Code-review towards Improvement of Skill Level of Novice Programmers

Abstract

To learn different art forms, such as painting, calligraphy, or music, students usually learn by watching and evaluating several works of art to hone and improve their skills. Similarly, when learning programming, previous studies in education have suggested that referring to programs written by other programmers was an effective method to improve programming skills. However, beginners or novices in programming with low skill levels cannot evaluate or comprehend advanced programs written by expert programmers because of their inability to read them. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel code-review method using check sheets to help improve the skills of beginner level programmers. In particular, in order to create a check sheet that enables effective learning, we choose from various question items and to create an optimal check sheet that is applicable for programming lessons. The proposed method applies Item response theory (IRT), which is widely used for estimating the difficulty level and discrimination ability of the questions in an examination. In this study, IRT was applied to the items on the check sheet to eliminate ineffective.