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An Experiment to Evaluate Constraint Diagrams with Novice Users

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Book cover Diagrammatic Representation and Inference (Diagrams 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6170))

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Abstract

Constraint diagrams [1, 2] constitute a graphical notation for program specification. This paper presents an experiment that compares the efficacy of constraint diagrams (CD) with natural language (NL) for understanding program specification statements. In a web-based competition 33 participants were given training either on CD notation or equivalent NL expression, and answered questions about specification statements. It was predicted that the CD participants would find learning and answering questions harder than those in the NL group, because they had no prior experience of CD notation. Although the CD group spent more time on the training examples and were less confident about their answers, they spent less time answering the questions and achieved approximately the same proportion of correct answers as the NL group.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Representation and Cognition Research Group, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK

    Noora Fetais & Peter C-H. Cheng

Authors
  1. Noora Fetais
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  2. Peter C-H. Cheng
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Interactive Computing, Design & Intelligence Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology,, 85 Fifth Street, NW 30308, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ashok K. Goel

  2. Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0FD, Cambridge, UK

    Mateja Jamnik

  3. Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Auburn University, 345 W. Magnolia Street, 36849-5347, Auburn, AL, USA

    N. Hari Narayanan

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© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Fetais, N., Cheng, P.CH. (2010). An Experiment to Evaluate Constraint Diagrams with Novice Users. In: Goel, A.K., Jamnik, M., Narayanan, N.H. (eds) Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6170. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14600-8_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14600-8_37

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14599-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14600-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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