How do you read source code?

Hi!

First of all, thank you for your participation! This questionnaire will take approximately 10 minutes and is best done on a computer with full screen, rather than a mobile phone.

This questionnaire is a part of my master thesis and focuses on people’s interaction with programming languages. With the data we will try to answer the question how chunking occurs in source code by its readers. Readers in the current study range from beginners to intermediates and no particular programming language knowledge is necessary to partake in the research, although some knowledge is advised.

During the first part of the questionnaire you will be shown a piece of Java-code for a limited amount of time. After this, you will be asked to reproduce parts of the code.

The second part of the questionnaire exists of some descriptive questions about you.

Please note that the survey is completely voluntary and if you decide not to participate in this study or withdraw from participating at any time, you will not be penalized. Your responses will be confidential and anonymous. All data will be stored in a password protected electronic format. The results of this study will be used for scholarly purposes only.

For further questions about the survey or the current study, please contact Nicole de Groot ( n.l.de.groot.2@umail.leidenuniv.nl ).

Clicking on the ‘Accept’ button below indicates that:

  1. You have read the above information;
  2. You voluntarily participate;

If you do not wish to participate in this research study, please click the [x] of this screen.

Part 1.1

Below you see a button that will show a piece of approximately 40 lines of Java-code for 160 seconds. This snippet will be in either scrambled or normal order. After these 160 seconds the code will disappear and you can click a button to go to the next page to answer a question about this code. Try to memorize as much as you can!

Please use full screen for this.

When you are ready, please click the button 'Show code!'. An automatic timer will start.

You have 160 seconds left!

Fakhoury Java snippet Fakhoury Java snippet scrambled

Part 1.2

Time has run out!

Please reproduce the code that you saw as detailed as possible in the order that you saw on the previous page (try to copy it from memory). Please use the text editor field below. Try to use as much correct syntax as possible. The time limit for recollection is 4 minutes. When you are finished, click ‘Finish Part 1.2’.

You have 240 seconds left!

Part 2

Thank you! You're half way!

Here, we would like to get to know some descriptive information about you. When you are finished, please click ‘Next’.

(1) Your age:


(2) Native spoken language:


(3) Your gender, choose:
Female
Male
Other, specify...
Prefer not to say

(4) Expertise in programming, choose:
Novice (just starting a Java course or similar programming language)
Intermediate (just finished a Java course or similar programming language)
Expert (over 2000hrs of general programming experience and over 400hrs of Java experience)

(5) Age you got started with programming:


(6) Note here the programming language(s) you know (no expert knowledge necessary, one course - either online or in school - is enough for a language to be listed):
Assembly Objective C
C Perl
C++ PHP
C# Python
Dart R
Go Ruby
Groovy Rust
Java SQL
JavaScript Swift
MATLAB Visual Basic
Other None

(7) Highest degree pursuing or completed:
Bachelor
Master
PhD
Other, specify...

Please click 'Next.' to save your answers.

Part 3

Thank you for your participation.

If you wish to get an update on the results of the study, you can leave your email here below.


Your email will only be used for this purpose and deleted after termination of the research.

If you have any remarks about the study or the questionnaire, please email Nicole de Groot ( n.l.de.groot.2@umail.leidenuniv.nl ).

Thanks again and have a good day. You may now close this screen.