Debugging physical computing projects provides a rich context to understand cross-disciplinary problem solving that integrates multiple domains of computing and engineering. Yet understanding and assessing students' learning of debugging remains a challenge, particularly in understudied areas such as physical computing, since finding and fixing hardware and software bugs is a deeply contextual practice. In this paper we draw on the rich history of clinical interviews to develop and pilot "failure artifact scenarios" in order to study changes in students' approaches to debugging and troubleshooting electronic textiles (e-textiles). We applied this clinical interview protocol before and after an eight-week-long e-textiles unit. We analyzed pre/post clinical interviews from 18 students at four different schools. The analysis revealed that students improved in identifying bugs with greater specificity, and across domains, and in considering multiple causes for bugs. We discuss implications for developing tools to assess students' debugging abilities through contextualized debugging scenarios in physical computing.

翻译：调试物理计算项目为理解融合计算与工程多领域的跨学科问题解决提供了丰富情境，然而评估学生在调试方面的学习仍面临挑战——尤其是在物理计算等研究尚不充分的领域，因为查找并修复软硬件故障本质上是一种高度依赖具体情境的实践。本文借鉴临床访谈的丰富经验，开发并试点"故障工件场景"研究法，以探究学生在电子纺织品调试与故障排除方法上的变化。我们在一项为期八周的电子纺织品单元教学前后应用此临床访谈方案，对来自四所不同学校的18名学生进行前后测访谈分析。分析表明，学生能更精准地识别故障、跨领域定位问题，并考虑多因故障。研究结果为开发通过物理计算情境化调试场景评估学生调试能力的工具提供了启示。