Improving Peer Code Review Quality with Gamification

#peer-feedback #motivation #gamification #🪴

Peer code review is a fundamental part of being a professional software developer (Li, 2006, p. 9). This is a process that is commonly enacted when a developer wants to make a change to the already existing codebase. One or more of their teammates will evaluate and make suggestions on the code based on an agreed upon style guide and general coding best practices. The developer then has to implement the feedback from their peers. This process is critical in the quality assurance of the application. Despite this requirement, the research suggests that students lack Motivation to give quality peer feedback during the code review process (Indriasari, Luxton-Reilly, & Denny, 2021). To give quality peer feedback, students must be engaged in the process. The literature states that students learn better by doing than by passively listening (Powell & Kalina, 2009) and that students can deepen their own learning through Peer Assessment (Race, 2001).

One significant area of research dedicated to increasing student motivation is Gamification which has been correlated to achieve more effective learning outcomes and motivation (Ahmad et al., 2020; Butler & Ahmed, 2016). @goshevski2017 differentiates rewards-based gamified experiences (badges, points, levels, etc.) with meaningful experiences (engagement, play, exposition, choice, information and reflection). Rewards-based gamified experiences are used extensively throughout the literature to implement gamified learning experiences (Ahmad et al., 2020; Garcia-Iruela, Fonseca, Hijon-Neira, & Chambel, 2020; Ibanez, Di-Serio, & Delgado-Kloos, 2014). Further, a meta-analysis by @oktaviati2018 found that badges, points, levels, and leaderboards are the most used gamified strategies used in Computer Science classrooms. Goshevski explains that these rewards-based experiences are directly tied to extrinsic motivation, and meaningful experiences are tied to intrinsic motivation. According to @seifert2004, "students characterized by [intrinsic motivation] tend to display positive affect, flexible and adaptive strategy use, and deep cognitive engagement in the task. They will tend to persist at difficult problems and learn from their mistakes." This makes the pursuit of intrinsic motivation a valuable one.

One of the only studies about gamifying the peer code review process for Computer Science students by @indriasari2023 found that it indeed led to better quality feedback. However, the methods they used in their experiment used mostly rewards-based gamified experiences. Indriasari states that "exploring more sophisticated game element designs with mechanics that are better targeted to influence review quality would be another useful avenue to explore in the future." In other words, it would be valuable to explore the impact that a more meaningful gamified experience would have on the peer code review process. With the results, Computer Science students can graduate not only having strong peer code review skills, but an increased sense of engagement through the gamified peer feedback experience.

📚 References

References

Ahmad, A., Zeshan, F., Khan, M. S., Marriam, R., Ali, A., & Samreen, A. (2020). The impact of gamification on learning outcomes of computer science majors. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 20(2), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3383456
Butler, S., & Ahmed, D. T. (2016). Gamification to engage and motivate students to achieve computer science learning goals. 2016 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), 237–240. Las Vegas, NV, USA: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI.2016.0053
Garcia-Iruela, M., Fonseca, M. J., Hijon-Neira, R., & Chambel, T. (2020). Gamification and computer science students’ activity. IEEE Access, 8, 96829–96836. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2997038
Ibanez, M.-B., Di-Serio, A., & Delgado-Kloos, C. (2014). Gamification for engaging computer science students in learning activities: A case study. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 7(3), 291–301. https://doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2014.2329293
Indriasari, T. D., Luxton-Reilly, A., & Denny, P. (2021). Investigating accuracy and perceived value of feedback in peer code review using gamification. Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, 199–205. Virtual Event Germany: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456338
Li, X. (2006). Using peer review to assess coding standards: A case study. San Diego.
Powell, K. C., & Kalina, C. J. (2009). Cognitive and social constructivism: Developing tools for an effective classroom. Education, 130(2), 241–250.
Race, P. (2001). A briefing on self, peer and group assessment. York: Learning and Teaching Support Network.