Automated Code Readability Feedback on Student Awareness

Despite its importance in industry, writing readable code is often overlooked in academia. We developed CQIS, an automated checker that automatically provides feedback about code readability. Each time a program is submitted, a code readability report will be generated, and its unique link will be sent to the author. The report highlights parts of the submitted program that can be made clearer. The use of the checker needs to be evaluated, whether students are aware about code readability due to the checker. There is also a need to know which code readability aspects that students are least aware of and need further attention. Consequently, we evaluate the checker for one academic year (six courses with 222 students), and directly ask students about their awareness of code readability. Students seem to be generally more aware of code readability aspects, especially about having clear comments and having only useful variables. Students occasionally check the quality of their code after the code works at functional level. Few misconceptions might occur on higher programming level.