Using Concept Maps to Assist Program Comprehension and Concept Location: An Empirical Study

Program comprehension is an integral part of the evolution and maintenance of large software systems. As it is increasingly difficult to comprehend these systems completely, programmers have to rely on a partial and as-needed comprehension. We study partial comprehension and programmer learning with the use of concept maps as a tool for capturing programmer knowledge during concept location, which is one of the tasks of software evolution and maintenance, and it is a prerequisite of a software change. We conduct a user study to measure the performance of programmers using concept maps to assist with locating concepts. The results demonstrate that programmer learning occurs during concept location and that concept maps assisted programmers with capturing programmer learning and successful concept location.