An empirical study of programmer learning during incremental software development

The paper presents a case study that investigates programmer learning during incremental program development. Dialog based protocol and protocol analysis are used to explore the learning from the point of view of self-directed learning theory. The replicated case study confirmed that the Bloom´s levels of cognitive domain and the cognitive activities of absorption, denial, reorganization, and expulsion characterize the programmer learning and give insight into the differences between experts and intermediate level programmers.