Automated Environment Diagram Assessment for Introductory CS Education

Abstract

Code tracing is a valuable skill that many beginning programmers lack. Environment diagrams visually represent the state of a program to help introductory students develop a notional model of execution and drawings are often used in CS1 courses. This thesis describes a tool that enables students to construct diagrams with a drag-and-drop and submit for automatic assessment. Students instantly receive hints to help them correct misunderstandings, allowing even large courses to give individualized feedback. Instructors can easily create questions by providing code that is interpreted into a solution diagram. In a CS1 course, 87% of students felt more confident in answering diagramming questions after after using the tool and 83% found the automated hints helpful.