"Hey IDE, Display Hello World": Integrating a Voice Coding Approach in Hands-on Computer Programming Activities

Abstract

Following recent advancements in automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies, we replicated an experiment four decades ago that utilized voice as an input modality for computer programming. We also extended this experiment by investigating the pedagogical effectiveness of ‘programming by voice’ in terms of attitude, self-efficacy, code correctness, and coding speed. A total of 96 students from an institute of technology in the capital region of the Philippines were randomly selected to participate in a quasi-experimental study using a one-group pretest-posttest design. We subjected students to programming activities with different levels of difficulty to compare voice and keyboard. Our results show that although voice decreases negativity, it likewise decreases control, which means that both attitude and self-efficacy are positively and negatively affected, respectively. Using voice as an input modality also allows students to code faster when the activities are easy but not when they are moderate or difficult. Code correctness analysis shows that voice is only preferable for easy and moderate machine problems. With the deviation of our findings from an experiment four decades ago, we can now conclude that ASR technologies and voice as input modality provide substantial implications and new opportunities for teaching and learning computer programming.