Can Object (Instance) Diagrams Help First Year Students Understand Program Behaviour?

Thomas, L.A., Ratcliffe, M.B. and Thomasson, B. J., Can Object (Instance) Diagrams Help First Year Students Understand Program Behaviour? in Diagrammatic Representation and Inference, Diagrams 2004, editors A. Blackwell, K. Marriot and Atushi Shimojima, Springer Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence, 2980.

This paper describes a project that aims to enhance student learning of Object Oriented Programming through the development of an interactive learning environment. Through a series of connected experiments we have sought to discover more about how our students learn and have incorporated this knowledge into a specially tailored Integrated Development Environment (IDE), VorteX.

Non peer reviewed