Abstract
Program visualization (PV) is potentially a useful method for teaching programming basics to novice programmers. However, there are very few studies on the effects of PV. We have developed a PV tool called ViLLE at the University of Turku. In this paper, multiple studies on the effects of the tool are presented. In addition, new qualitative data about students' feedback of using the tool is presented. Both, the results of our studies and the feedback indicate that ViLLE can be used effectively in teaching basic programming concepts to novice programmers.
Highlights
Programming is one of the main objectives in computer science studies
As we can see from the table, statistically significant difference between no earlier programming experience (NPE) and some earlier programming experience (SPE) remained in the post-test in the control group
We plan to develop the tool further based on the user opinions and experiences, and further research the effects of the tool when used in programming teaching
Summary
Programming is one of the main objectives in computer science studies. according to several studies (see, e.g., McCracken et al (2001) and Ala-Mutka (2005)) students have significant problems in learning the very basics of programming. According to Wiggins (1998), the purpose of visualization is to help the user understand what a program does, why it does it, how it works, and what the end result is. Visualization systems can supposedly help students to understand programs better, improving the learning results. We have developed a program visualization tool called ViLLE at the University of Turku, Finland. The purpose of developing the tool was to find out if program visualization can help students in learning to program. In this paper we describe the tool itself for both in teacher’s and student’s point of view and present the results of our studies on the effects of ViLLE so far. ViLLE is a program visualization tool, developed at the University of Turku. By using the TRAKLA server (see Malmi et al (2004)), ViLLE’s automatically assessed exercises can be integrated as a part of a programming course
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