Attention Patterns for Code Animations: Using Eye Trackers to Evaluate Dynamic Code Presentation Techniques

Abstract

Programming instructors seek new ways to present code to novice programmers. It is important to understand how these new presentation methods affect students. We prototyped three different ways to animate the presentation of code. We used eye-tracking technology to observe participants as they were presented with animations and completed three activities: code summarization, syntax error correction, and logic error correction. The prototypes, our method for observation, and our analysis methods were each informed by previous research. We observed variation in how participants consumed animations. Our initial results indicate that viewing animations of a single textual representation of source code may affect the attentional processes of novice programmers during subsequent tasks.