Using the SCORE software package to analyse novice computer graphics programming

This paper presents the SCORE (Student Coding Observation and Recording Engine) software package designed to capture and analyse student coding processes. The package consists of an Eclipse [1] plug-in to gather observational data while students code a programming task, and an analysis tool that allows researchers to visualise, categorise and annotate changes in code. Because the SCORE package supports code text level analysis it enables more in-depth understanding of student programming and problem solving approaches than meta-data or program output analysis tools. SCORE also provides features to assist the analysis of Computer Graphics programs. An example analysis of a student's Computer Graphics assignments demonstrates how SCORE was used to reveal the dominant role of general programming issues in the early assignment, whereas spatial programming issues persisted throughout both assignments.