ASPA: A Static Analyser to Support Learning and Continuous Feedback on Programming Courses. An Empirical Validation

For decades there have been arguments how to teach programming in the basic courses. Supportive intervention methods to improve students’ learning and methods to improve assessment process have been widely studied. There are various successful methods to each topic separately, but only a few of them fit for both. In this work, we aimed at validating ASPA a static analyser tool that supports learning and continuous feedback on programming courses. For this purpose, we designed and conduct an empirical study among 236 students enrolled in the basic programming course, that voluntary adopted the tools during the project development activities. We first profiled the students, then, evaluated the attitude toward using ASPA, the perceived ease of use, and the perceived usefulness. Results showed that ASPA is a good helper for the entire course and especially the student’s programming assignments, and it also helps to improve the students’ grades.