Novice comprehension of Object-Oriented OO programs: An empirical study

Class structure represents one of the essential concepts of Object-Oriented paradigm and therefore, a good understanding of this concept will positively affect the effectiveness of novice programmers. Comprehension underpins many programming activities such as program design and program implementation. Program comprehension represents in this context a mental model approach that involves interesting theoretical frameworks of program comprehension. Our starting point is Burkhardt cognitive model for OO program comprehension [1]. The model considers two distinct but interacting models: program and situation. Our focus does not rely primarily in distinguishing between these models, but use both of them to assess the influence on novices of class structure on program comprehension. We report on an empirical study that aims of to investigate the effect of class structure on program comprehension for novices using controlled experimentation in which the treatments were a simple program without class structure versus the same program with classes present; they are termed respectively as: Non-Class based program and as Class based program. Data was collected from three different sets of experiments comprising of a total of 211 undergraduate first year computer science students from different institutions. Preliminary findings of this investigation are reported, in particular results indicate that Class based programs were more understandable, readable, and accessible than the corresponding Non-Class based programs. Our findings align with and support those works that claim the cognitive benefits of the OO paradigm. Directions for future research are highlighted.