State revisits within solving sessions were rarer in the Pulla deployments (6–12% of UH sessions, 0–3% at Aalto) than the 21–33% previously reported for similar Parsons tasks¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · design r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Between 6% and 12% of University of Houston solving sessions contained at least one state revisit, below the 21–33% reported by Helminen et al. for similar Parsons tasks; at Aalto, revisits were rare (0–3%) and absent in P3. → Daniel Prol 2026

Evidence¶

Daniel Prol 2026¶

Daniel Prol, Juho Leinonen, Arto Hellas, Saleh Alkhamees, Amin Alipour. (2026). Pulla: A Parsons Problem Tool for Fine-Grained Behavioral Tracing and Instructor-Facing Problem-Solving Analysis. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15944 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2609.15944

q2 · i? · design · r2

Log analysis of solving-session traces across both deployments, illustrated by a state-transition graph of one UH student's 12-attempt sequence on P3 showing four regressions and two unproductive resubmissions. Sessions with "at least one state revisit" were 6–12% at UH and 0–3% at Aalto.

"Across the University of Houston, between 6% and 12% of solving sessions contained at least one state revisit, below the 21–33% reported by Helminen et al. [7] for similar Parsons tasks; at Aalto University, revisits were rare (0–3% across problems) and absent in P3, the problem from which Figure 3 is drawn."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Deploying a trace-capturing Parsons tool in two university courses surfaced recurring difficulty patterns including exception-type misidentification, return-for-throw confusion, and incorrect control-flow ordering — a broader claim this one bears on
• Control-flow ordering errors appeared across all UH problems (43–52% of incorrect attempts) but were only a secondary pattern at Aalto, with the conceptual barrier apparently shifting with problem structure — related
• Students across both deployments substituted return statements for exception-raising constructs, treating error conditions as reasons to exit early — related
• Exception-type confusion was the dominant difficulty pattern in SafeDivide at the University of Houston (90% of incorrect attempts) and persisted across harder problems in both deployments — related