Creation of a Serious Game for Teaching Code Review: An Experience Report

Abstract

Code review, a manual inspection of source code by developers other than the author, is a frequently used practice for improving code quality in the software development lifecycle. Employing a tool-based review of code changes has become the norm for a wide variety of open source and industrial systems. Despite its widespread usage and importance, software development practices such as code review are often not addressed in typical Software Engineering education. To address this knowledge gap, we propose to use a serious game approach for teaching code review practices. In this study, we define our learning objectives and design a code review serious game along with its companion quizzes. Then we conduct a small preliminary experiment in order to procure feedback. Using the results of the experiment and participant interviews, we improve our game prototype for integration into a software engineering course while optimizing the initial experiment for student's benefit. We document the process, lessons learned and the future directions of the game. The results we gather indicate that the game is ready to be used in a software engineering course setting.

Integrating Code Reviews into Online Lessons to Support Software Engineering Education

“…If students are expected to review code submitted by their peers, they should be able to do so satisfactorily, as otherwise the exercise is neither useful for the student conducting the review nor for the student receiving the feedback. To address this challenge, a few studies have proposed focusing on teaching the code review process to individual students, namely, work by Ardıç et al [3], Ribeiro Guimarães [19], and Song et al [21]. Our work is most aligned with this line of research.…”

Toward Code Review Notebooks

“…While peer code review is particularly useful for students to get practical experience, fewer tools focus on providing individual students with a demonstration of the code review process. Examples include work by (i) Ardıc ¸et al, who proposed a serious game in which players review predefined code snippets, identifying lines containing defects in order to advance to the next level [6], and (ii) Song et al, who developed a tool for peer code review that could also be used to explain the code review process by having students review code that had already been graded [7]. Nevertheless, these tools are often standalone applications that are not designed to be embedded directly within an online lesson or lecture.…”