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ICSE 2023
Sun 14 - Sat 20 May 2023 Melbourne, Australia
Fri 19 May 2023 15:45 - 16:00 at Meeting Room 101 - SE education methods and tools Chair(s): Andrew Begel

Block-based programming languages like Scratch are increasingly popular for programming education and end-user programming. Recent program analyses build on the insight that source code can be modelled using techniques from natural language processing. Many of the regularities of source code that support this approach are due to the syntactic overhead imposed by textual programming languages. This syntactic overhead, however, is precisely what block-based languages remove in order to simplify programming. Consequently, it is unclear how well this modelling approach performs on block-based programming languages. In this paper, we investigate the applicability of language models for the popular block-based programming language Scratch. We model Scratch programs using n-gram models, the most essential type of language model, and transformers, a popular deep learning model. Evaluation on the example tasks of code completion and bug finding confirm that blocks inhibit predictability, but the use of language models is nevertheless feasible. Our findings serve as foundation for improving tooling and analyses for block-based languages.

Fri 19 May

Displayed time zone: Hobart change

15:45 - 17:15
SE education methods and toolsTechnical Track / SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training at Meeting Room 101
Chair(s): Andrew Begel Carnegie Mellon University
15:45
15m
Talk
On the Applicability of Language Models to Block-Based Programs
Technical Track
Elisabeth Griebl University of Passau, Benedikt Fein University of Passau, Florian Obermueller University of Passau, Gordon Fraser University of Passau, René Just University of Washington
16:00
15m
Talk
Improving Grading Outcomes in Software Engineering Projects Through Automated Contributions Summaries
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Kai Presler-Marshall Bowdoin College, Sarah Heckman North Carolina State University, Kathryn Stolee North Carolina State University
16:15
15m
Talk
Analyzing the Quality of Submissions in Online Programming Courses
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Maria Tigina JetBrains Research, Anastasiia Birillo JetBrains Research, Yaroslav Golubev JetBrains Research, Hieke Keuning Utrecht University, Nikolay Vyahhi Stepik, Timofey Bryksin JetBrains Research
Pre-print
16:30
15m
Talk
A Metric for Measuring Software Engineering Post-Graduate Outcomes
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Travis Breaux Carnegie Mellon University, Jennifer Moritz Carnegie Mellon University
16:45
7m
Talk
Using Focus to Personalise Learning and Feedback in Software Engineering Education
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Bansri Amish Modi School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Andrew Cain School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Guy Wood-Bradley Deakin University, Jake Renzella University of New South Wales, Sydney
16:52
7m
Talk
Shaping a Tool for Developing Computing Students’ Professional Identity - Industry Perspectives
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Laura Tubino Deakin University, Kerri Morgan Deakin University, Guy Wood-Bradley Deakin University, Andrew Cain School of Information Technology, Deakin University
17:00
7m
Talk
REFERENT: Transformer based Feedback Generation using Assignment Information for Programming Course
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Jinseok Heo Sungkyunkwan University, Hohyeon Jeong Sungkyunkwan University, Dongwook Choi SungKyunKwan University, Eunseok Lee Sungkyunkwan University
17:07
7m
Talk
Factors Affecting Compilable State at Each Keystroke in CS1
SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training
Steven Scott Utah State University, Arto Hellas Aalto University, Juho Leinonen The University of Auckland, John Edwards Utah State University