Methods and tools for exploring novice compilation behaviour
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Computing education research
Need to consider variations within demographic groups when evaluating educational interventions
ITiCSE '09 Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
What would other programmers do: suggesting solutions to error messages
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
On compiler error messages: what they say and what they mean
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
Measuring the effectiveness of error messages designed for novice programmers
Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Understanding the syntax barrier for novices
Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Mind your language: on novices' interactions with error messages
Proceedings of the 10th SIGPLAN symposium on New ideas, new paradigms, and reflections on programming and software
Learning programming languages through corrective feedback and concept visualisation
ICWL'11 Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Advances in Web-Based Learning
BlueFix: using crowd-sourced feedback to support programming students in error diagnosis and repair
ICWL'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Advances in Web-Based Learning
Novice understanding of program analysis tool notifications
Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering
Looking glass: a C++ library for testing student programs through reflection (abstract only)
Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
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Novices find it difficult to understand and use compiler error messages. It is useful to refine this observation and study the effect of different message styles on how well and quickly students identify errors in programs. For example, does an increased level of detail simplify the understanding of errors and their correction? We analyzed messages produced by a number of compilers for five programming languages, and grouped them into three style categories from their level of detail and presentation format, and correlated the level of experience and error type with performance and speed of response. The study involved two groups of students taking an introductory programming course at two different institutions; they used messages in these three styles to debug erroneous code. The results indicate that more detailed messages do not necessarily simplify the understanding of errors but that it matters more where information is placed and how it is structured.