Supporting program comprehension with data-enhanced active reading

Abstract

This study proposes a novel pedagogical approach to applying active reading (AR) strategies and the learning analytics dashboard to program comprehension (PC) in programming courses. The objective was to visualize the code-reading behaviors of novice programming learners using learning logs and promote code comprehension. The strategy was applied to students in computer science classes at a liberal arts college in India. The results show that the utilization of the dashboard positively influenced students’ learning behaviors outside the classroom. It was recognized as an effective means of supporting PC, highlighting the need to elaborate on how to adopt dashboards in code reading tasks. The study confirms that reflecting on learning using the dashboard can promote learners’ metacognitive skills, regardless of subject or language. It contributes to AR research by demonstrating new practical benefits of AR strategies for PC.