A model of novice debugging in LISP
Papers presented at the first workshop on empirical studies of programmers on Empirical studies of programmers
Fragile knowledge and neglected strategies in novice programmers
Papers presented at the first workshop on empirical studies of programmers on Empirical studies of programmers
Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM
Debug it: a debugging practicing system
Computers & Education
Introducing computer systems from a programmer's perspective
Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education
A multi-national study of reading and tracing skills in novice programmers
Working group reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Why Sally and Joey can't debug: next generation tools and the perils they pose
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
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The ability to debug existing code is an important skill to develop in student programmers. However, debugging may not receive the same amount of explicit teaching attention as other material and the main expression of debugging competence is students' ability to undo problems which they themselves have injected into their assignments. Further, as the literature points out, debugging skills do not necessarily develop at the same rate as code writing skills. This paper discusses an intervention in a second year course designed to improve students' application of simple debugging techniques. We use a puzzle based approach where students are graded based on the number of attempts they take to locate misbehaving code in a program which they did not write but whose function they understand. An existing assignment component addresses another aspect of debugging practice.