文章基本信息

标题：The Non-Deterministic Path to Concurrency – Exploring how Students Understand the Abstractions of Concurrency
本地全文：下载
作者：Filip STRÖMBÄCK ; Linda MANNILA ; Mariam KAMKAR 等
期刊名称：Informatics in Education
印刷版ISSN：1648-5831
出版年度：2021
卷号：20
期号：4
页码：683-716
DOI：10.15388/infedu.2021.29
语种：English
出版社：Institute of Mathematics and Informatics
摘要：Concurrency is often perceived as difficult by students. One reason for this may be due to the fact that ions used in concurrent programs leave more situations undefined compared to sequential programs (e.g., in what order statements are executed), which makes it harder to create a proper mental model of the execution environment. Students who aim to explore the ions through testing are further hindered by the non-determinism of concurrent programs since even incorrect programs may seem to work properly most of the time. In this paper we aim to explore how students’ understanding these ions by examining 137 solutions to two concurrency questions given on the final exam in two years of an introductory concurrency course. To highlight problematic areas of these ions, we present alternative ions under which each incorrect solution would be correct.
关键词：abstraction;concurrency;memory model;synchronization;locks