Abstract:
Programmers often rely on online help-seeking resources such as developer forums and language documentation when working with libraries and APIs. Finding relevant resources requires them to formulate search queries that effectively represent their information needs. However, factors influencing how novice programmers write search queries are not well documented.
To better understand how to support the development of search skills in novices, we investigate how novice programmers write search queries while learning about an unfamiliar data visualization library. We further examine how instructional design may influence how students formulate queries. We collected queries written by students in an introductory programming class after completing a self-directed tutorial on the Seaborn library in Python. Given a Seaborn-generated data visualization to recreate or modify, students were asked to formulate a search query they would use to find additional information on how to do so. In this work-in-progress paper, we present an exploratory study of the factors that shape the queries formulated by novice programmers. We further report insights from a subset of the data on patterns in the queries and search results as a step toward understanding how to support novice programmers in developing effective search query strategies for online help-seeking.
To better understand how to support the development of search skills in novices, we investigate how novice programmers write search queries while learning about an unfamiliar data visualization library. We further examine how instructional design may influence how students formulate queries. We collected queries written by students in an introductory programming class after completing a self-directed tutorial on the Seaborn library in Python. Given a Seaborn-generated data visualization to recreate or modify, students were asked to formulate a search query they would use to find additional information on how to do so. In this work-in-progress paper, we present an exploratory study of the factors that shape the queries formulated by novice programmers. We further report insights from a subset of the data on patterns in the queries and search results as a step toward understanding how to support novice programmers in developing effective search query strategies for online help-seeking.