Investigating the Progression of Programmers' Mental Models

Abstract

Research on mental model representations developed by programmers during parallel program comprehension is important for informing and advancing teaching methods including model based learning and visualizations. However, there is a significant lack of empirical research on mental models formed during the comprehension of parallel programs. We present an empirical method for externalizing and mapping mental models of learners and its novel application to a programming context. Participants externalize their mental models by drawing diagrams to depict the execution of a parallel program during a code tracing task. The code tracing task is performed prior to and during instruction on parallel programming in C using OpenMP. The progression of the mental models is analyzed using a rubric to determine how they developed and changed as participants learned. This poster presents our work in progress and preliminary results.