Date of Award
5-2013
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Legacy Department
Computer Science
Committee Chair/Advisor
Sitaraman, Murali
Committee Member
Grossman , Harold C.
Committee Member
Hallstrom , Jason O.
Committee Member
Jacobs , David P.
Abstract
As computing becomes ubiquitous, software correctness has a fundamental role in ensuring the safety and security of the systems we build. To design and develop software correctly according to their formal contracts, CS students, the future software practitioners, need to learn a critical set of skills that are necessary and sufficient for reasoning about software correctness.
This dissertation presents a systematic approach to both introducing these reasoning skills into the curriculum, and assessing how well the students have learned them. Specifically, it introduces a comprehensive Reasoning Concept Inventory (RCI) that captures the fine details of basic reasoning skills that are ideally learned across the undergraduate curriculum to reason about software correctness, to develop high quality software, and to understand why software works as specified. The RCI forms the basis for developing learning outcomes that help educators to assess the adequacy of current techniques and pinpoint necessary improvements. This dissertation contains results from experimentation and assessment over the past few years in multiple CS courses. The results show that the finer principles of mathematical reasoning of software correctness can be taught effectively and continuously improved with the help of the RCI using suitable teaching practices, and supporting methods and tools.
Recommended Citation
Drachova-strang, Svetlana, "TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES FOR SOFTWARE CORRECTNESS USING A REASONING CONCEPT INVENTORY" (2013). All Dissertations. 1095.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/1095