Towards a Framework for Teaching Debugging

Debugging is an important component of software development, yet most novice programmers are not explicitly taught to apply systematic strategies or processes for debugging. In this paper we adapt a framework developed for teaching troubleshooting to the debugging domain, and explore how the literature on teaching debugging maps to this framework. We identify debugging processes that are fundamental for novices to learn, aspects of debugging that novices typically struggle to develop, and shortcomings of tools designed to support teaching of debugging.