Visual Specifications for Web-Application Programming Assignments

Programming assignment specifications are typically communicated to learners as text in a natural language. These specifications may be ambiguous, and the problem can be compounded in a linguistically diverse country when learners or instructors lack fluency in the language of communication. In this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	2016 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E) pp. 50 - 53
Main Authors:	Rojit, Vidhu, Pai, Sindhu R., Kaivalya, Shruthi, Kumar, Viraj
Format:	Conference Proceeding
Language:	English
Published:	IEEE 01.12.2016
Subjects:	Computer bugs Context Correctness specification Cryptographic obfuscation JavaScript Programming profession Software Visualization Web application development
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Programming assignment specifications are typically communicated to learners as text in a natural language. These specifications may be ambiguous, and the problem can be compounded in a linguistically diverse country when learners or instructors lack fluency in the language of communication. In this paper, we propose an alternate way for instructors to specify intent that is suitable for certain types of programming tasks. A visual specification is a recorded or live demonstration of the programmatic solution's functionality. We conducted a study of web-application programming assignments where learners were provided both visual and textual specifications. Based on the results of this study and the feedback obtained from learners, we conclude that visual specifications can help in two ways: (1) visual specifications seem to be clearer than textual specifications for these types of assignments, and (2) learners appear to solve problems more independently with visual specifications.
DOI:	10.1109/T4E.2016.019