A hint generation system for introductory programming exercises in Java

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves, Jorge Alexandre da Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/27449
• topic: Introductory programming; Hint generation; Recommender systems; Autonomous work; Introdução à programação; Geração de dicas; Sistema de recomendação; Trabalho autónomo

Teaching and learning programming is a real challenge for teachers and students. Students starting to code for the first time, feeling stuck when trying to solve a programming exercise is normal, and teachers should support them in this case. The student who works autonomously can create a proactive attitude towards his education. With the current evolution of technology and world events, the remote environment for education is a reality, so tools that can help students, guiding them when they need it, can be important to give them the necessary autonomy.This dissertation proposes a recommendation system that can be integrated into any exercise platform to recognize a partially written code and generate reliable and useful tips (combined with positive feedback) whenever the student needs support, based on a solution previously set by the teacher. This dissertation describes the implementation of such a recommendation system, based on abstract syntax trees and tree editing distance. A system prototype composed of a REST API and a Web frontend was developed as a materialization of the proposed approach.