PPIG 2020 - 31st Annual Workshop
Doctoral Consortium
Validation of Stimuli for Studying Mental Representations Formed by Parallel Programmers During Parallel Program Comprehension
Leah Bidlake, Eric Aubanel, Daniel Voyer
Abstract: Research on mental representations formed by programmers during program comprehension has not yet been applied to parallel programming. The goal of this proposed study is to validate the stimuli that will be used in subsequent studies on mental representations formed by expert parallel programmers. The task used to stimulate the comprehension process will be verifying the correctness of parallel programs by determining the presence of data races. Responses to the data race question will be analysed to determine the validity of the stimuli. Participants will also be asked what components of the program they used to determine whether or not there was a data race and their responses will be collected for use in future work.