Evaluation of the Readability of Programs Written by Beginner Students

• Eliane Cristina de Araujo UFCG
• Dalton Serey Guerrero UFCG
• Jorge César Abrantes de Figueiredo UFCG

Abstract

In this paper, we report on a study that was carried out, in the context of an introductory programming course, to investigate how code readability correlates with the students’ achievements. We suggest a simple metric to automatically assess beginners code readability. The study revealed a correlation between code readability and students’ course performance. In parallel, we brought to light other factors which, taken together with the readability metric, can better explain students performance in the course.

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