Proposal of a Data Collection Method for Realizing Feedback in a Program Tracing Exercise System
Yuichiro Tateiwa, Tomohiro Mogi, Takahito Tomoto, Takako Akakura · 2024
Program tracing tasks ask about the behavior of a program, such as "the next expression to be executed" or "the value of a variable during the execution of that expression." The program tracing exercise system developed by Tomoto et al. provides an environment that enables efficient practice using program tracing tasks. This system poses questions based on the program tracing tasks in response to the learner’s answers. As feedback, it displays the program’s correct behavior based on the progress of the question and shows the execution results with concrete variable values based on the learner’s answers.However, generating new program tracing tasks and integrating them into this system requires significant effort and time. Therefore, the authors proposed a method for automatically generating program tracing tasks from programs. This paper proposes a method for collecting the data necessary to realize feedback. This method involves tracing program execution with the debugger gdb and collecting the necessary data based on the program’s structure and the learner’s answers. The evaluation using programs extracted from programming exercise textbooks showed that this method can correctly collect the data necessary to provide feedback.