Novice programmers strategies for online resource use and their impact on source code

Abstract: Websites are frequently used by programmers to support the development process. This paper investigates programmer-Web interactions when coding, and combines observations of behaviour with assessments of the resulting source code. We report on an online observational study with ten undergraduate student programmers as they engaged in programming tasks of varying complexity. Screens were recorded of participants' activities, and each participated in an interview. Videos and interviews were thematically analysed. Novice programmers employed various strategies for seeking and utilising online knowledge. The resulting source code was examined to determine the extent to which it met requirements and whether it contained errors. The source code analysis revealed that coding with the websites involved more coding time and effort, but increased the possibility of producing correct code. However, coding with websites also introduced instances of either incorrect or non-executable source code.