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  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available August 7, 2024
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  3. Incremental development is the process of writing a small snippet of code and testing it before moving on. For students in introductory programming courses, the value of incremental development is especially higher as they may suffer from more syntax errors, lack the proficiency to address complicated bugs, and may be more prone to frustration when struggling to correct code. However, to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that aim to teach programming processes such as incremental development, we need to develop measures to assess such processes. In this paper, we present a way to measure incremental development. By qualitatively analyzing 15 student coding interviews, we identified common behaviors in the programming process that relate to incremental development. We then leveraged a dataset of over 1000 development sessions -- about 52,000 code snapshots at compilation time -- to automatically detect the common behaviors identified in our qualitative analysis. Finally, we crafted a formal metric, called the ``Measure of Incremental Development’' (MID), to quantify how effectively a student used incremental development during a programming session. The MID detects common non-incremental development patterns such as excessive debugging after large additions of code to automatically assess a sequence of snapshots. The MID aligns with human evaluations of incrementality with over 80% accuracy. Our metric enables new research directions and interventions focused on improving students' development practices. 
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  4. Abstract

    Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goals.

    As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability?

    Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eightleverage pointsare: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwinedleverscan be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B) Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre‐emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision‐making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non‐substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits.

    Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling‐up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world.

    A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

     
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