Online vs. Face-to-Face Pedagogical Code Reviews: An Empirical Comparison

Reviewed by Greg Wilson / 2011-12-04
Keywords: Code Review, Computing Education

Hundhausen2011 Christopher D. Hundhausen, Pawan Agarwal, and Michael Trevisan: "Online vs. face-to-face pedagogical code reviews". Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education - SIGCSE '11, 10.1145/1953163.1953201.

Given the increased importance of communication, teamwork, and critical thinking skills in the computing profession, we have been exploring studio-based instructional methods, in which students develop solutions and iteratively refine them through critical review by their peers and instructor. We have developed an adaptation of studio-based instruction for computing education called the pedagogical code review (PCR), which is modeled after the code inspection process used in the software industry. Unfortunately, PCRs are time-intensive, making them difficult to implement within a typical computing course. To address this issue, we have developed an online environment that allows PCRs to take place asynchronously outside of class. We conducted an empirical study that compared a CS 1 course with online PCRs against a CS 1 course with face-to-face PCRs. Our study had three key results: (a) in the course with face-to-face PCRs, student attitudes with respect to self-efficacy and peer learning were significantly higher; (b) in the course with face-to-face PCRs, students identified more substantive issues in their reviews; and (c) in the course with face-to-face PCRs, students were generally more positive about the value of PCRs. In light of our findings, we recommend specific ways online PCRs can be better designed.