Designing and Validating Code Comprehension Tests: An Empirical Study on Task Design (Master’s Thesis Summary)

Code comprehension is a central activity in software development, yet there is no generally accepted definition of the term and its components. Based on existing literature, we have created a multidimensional definition of the construct of code comprehension, with analytical, abstract, and critical thinking as its cognitive facets. Building on this, we developed a test instrument that assesses these facets using different types of tasks. The instrument was then evaluated for its ability to capture these cognitive facets and whether it supports the suggested theoretical model. The thesis thus contributes to a clearer conceptual understanding of code comprehension and provides a foundation for systematic, comparable, and empirically grounded research and assessment in software engineering.