Is Self-Rated Confidence a Predictor for Performance in Programming Comprehension Tasks?

Abstract

Studies on programming comprehension have focused largely on the type of reading strategies individuals employ. However, quite few programming comprehension studies have focused on the relationship between the self-rated confidence levels and the performance levels of the participants. In this study, our aim was to identify the effect of confidence levels among the participants as they attempt familiar programming questions. Our results indicate that due to familiarity, all participants generally show high confidence levels. High performers demonstrated self-rated high confidence levels as compared to low performers. However, the difference in confidence levels of high and low performers was found non significant. Furthermore, the confidence levels and the performance levels are weakly correlated indicating that confidence levels do not affect the performance levels of this set of participants on the types of questions tested. Moreover, the machine learning algorithms utilized to classify the participants in this study showed potential based on their performance and confidence levels.