Experimental Design of a Learning Support System for Algorithm Refinement in Novice Debugging

Since debugging techniques are essential even for novice programming learners, we have developed a learning support environment that teaches a systematic debugging process. The support environment received positive evaluations, but the debugging process taught with this environment assumes that learners already understand an algorithm for developing source code. It has been observed that some learners have become stuck trying to obtain the expected output of a statement. This work-in-progress paper describes a design of a learning support system that teaches how to refine an algorithm and how to find relations arising between the algorithm and source code for debugging.