Evaluation of student design processes

In order to better understand how students design, a set of techniques have been developed for analyzing and criticizing design processes. As students complete design projects, data is collected on the methodologies that they follow. Using a variety of statistical and graphical tools, the data is then analyzed to profile how students spend their time during design and to identify those design practices that are most likely to be either problematic or successful. Results are provided from a series of experiments using these techniques in an introductory computer programming class