Title: An Empirical Study of Bitwise Operators Intuitiveness through Performance Metrics Show Chinese title

Title: 通过性能指标的位运算符直观性实证研究

Abstract: Objectives: This study aims to investigate the readability and understandability of bitwise operators in programming, with the main hypothesis that there will be a difference in the performance metrics (response time and error rate) between participants exposed to various bitwise operators related questions and those who are not. Participants: Participants in this human research study include people without programming background, novice programmers, and university students with varying programming experience (from freshmen to PhD level). There were 23 participants in this study. Study Methods: This study uses a within-subjects experimental design to assess how people with diverse programming backgrounds understand and use bitwise operators. Participants complete tasks in a JavaScript program, and their task completion times and task accuracy are recorded for analysis. Findings: The results indicate that operators can be one of the factors predicting response time, showing a small but significant effect (R-squared = 0.032, F(1, 494) = 16.5, p < .001). Additionally, operators such as OR, NOT, and Left Shift showed statistical significance in task completion times compared to other operators. Conclusions: While the complexity of bitwise operators did not generally result in longer task completion times, certain operators were found to be less intuitive, suggesting the need for further investigation and potential redesign for improved understandability. Show Chinese abstract

Abstract: 目标：本研究旨在调查编程中位运算符的可读性和可理解性，主要假设是暴露于与位运算符相关问题的参与者与未暴露的参与者在性能指标（反应时间和错误率）上存在差异。 参与者：本人体研究的参与者包括没有编程背景的人、初级程序员以及具有不同编程经验的大学生（从新生到博士水平）。 本研究共有23名参与者。 研究方法：本研究采用被试内实验设计，以评估具有不同编程背景的人如何理解和使用位运算符。 参与者完成JavaScript程序中的任务，并记录任务完成时间和任务准确性以进行分析。 发现：结果表明，运算符可能是预测反应时间的因素之一，显示出一个小但显著的效果（R平方=0.032，F(1, 494)=16.5，p < .001）。 此外，与其它运算符相比，OR、NOT和左移运算符在任务完成时间上显示出统计学意义。 结论：尽管位运算符的复杂性通常不会导致更长的任务完成时间，但某些运算符被发现不太直观，这表明需要进一步研究并可能重新设计以提高可理解性。