INTEGRATION OF VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES AND

ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGY IN LEARNING COMPUTER

PROGRAMMING: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK
Siti Rosminah MD Derus & Ahmad Zamzuri Mohamad Ali
Faculty of Art, Computing and Creative Industry
Sultan Idris Education University
Perak, Malaysia

2
nd
World Conferences pn Educational and Instructional Studies
WCEIS 2013
Porto Bello Hotel Resort& SPA
Need of experts in the field of IT such as software
programming, database, software engineering, computer
networking and creative multimedia.

Research findings shows that industry needs for software
engineers is high.

This indicates that the programming personnel are a critical
requirement for the industries.
Programming
Course
at
Tertiary Level
Science
Mathematics
Engineering
Difficult Complex
Issues i n Programmi ng educati on
Difficulty in understanding abstract programming characteristics
as well as to relate the program development environment with
real problems.
(Ala-Mutka, 2004)
Limited knowledge to surface and superficial, resulting their inability
to develop a perfect mental model for problem solution involving the
programming development process.
(Reginamary et al., 2009)
Inability in visualizing the flow of the programming process such as
what happens in computer memory as the program executed.

(Ahmad Rizal, Mohd Yusop, Abdul Rasid, & Mohamad Zaid, 2011)
Therefore, an effective instructional
strategy with the aid of appropriate
learning support tool is crucial to ensure
an optimal learning outcome
Issues i n Programmi ng educati on
a learning support tool which can be visually assisting
the students in understanding the behaviour of
programs .
Source: http://ville.cs.utu.fi/old/
Program Vi sual i zati on (PV)
Eval uati on of PV
10
(42%)
11
(46%)
2
(8%)
1
(4%)
Non_Significant Result
Significant Result
Significant result in which
contribution of AV
uncertain
Significant Result in
wrong direction
Meta Analysis by Hundhausen et al., 2002
Eval uati on of PV
10
(42%)
11
(46%)
2
(8%)
1
(4%)
Non_Significant Result
Significant Result
Significant result in which
contribution of AV
uncertain
Significant Result in
wrong direction
Meta Analysis by Hundhausen et al., 2002
Many of those PV
developed, the focus was
on the number of visualized
components instead of how
those visualizations
benefited students
learning.
Passive usage (viewing) of
visualization does not
guarantee better learning
performance and it is really
important to engage learner
actively with visualization tool
throughout the learning activity.
ACTVE LEARNING STRATEGY
Programming skills cannot be developed unless students were actively
engaged in the learning activities.
Therefore, as PV is beneficial for students to comprehend the abstract concept of
programming, it is essential to administer an active learning strategy in order to
guide student to actively engage with the tool.
This can be implemented by utilizing Engagement Taxonomy (ET) proposed by
Naps et al. (2002), the modes by which students could become active
participants in exploring programming with a PV.

SHP-KPT2012 10/
Level
Activitiy
No Viewing There is no use of visualization tools
Viewing
Considered the core of student engagement with the visualization tool.
Students only view the behavior of program activities from screen display.
Responding

Learner interacts with visualization by responding to visualizations related
questions.
Changing Visualization or state of visualization can be altered.
Constructing Learner can create own visualizations.
Presenting Learner presents visualizations for discussion and feedback.
TABLE 1: ENGAGEMENT TAXONOMY
(Source: Naps et al., 2002)
OTHERS FACTOR RELATING TO PROGRAMMING
PERFORMANCE
Factors such as students perception and self-efficacy that they are able to
complete tasks, control strategies and learning environment should also be
taken into account.
Self-efficacy is a belief in an individual's capability to organize and perform
necessary actions required to attain designated types of performance
(Bandura, 1977).
Apart from learning strategies, there is a requirement of active involvement of
students in the learning process, the ability to think logically which affect their
ability to solve problems, thus lead them to develop a program.
SHP-KPT2012 12/
CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK
Program
Visualization
Cognitive Load
Theory(Sweller,
1988)
Atkinson-Shiffrin
Memory Model
(Atkinson &
Shiffrin, 1971).
Learning Active Strategy (LAS)
LAS (Responding)
LAS (Changing)
LAS (Constructing)
LAS (Presenting)
Logical Ability
- Low Logic (LL)
- High Logic (HL)
Engagement Taxonomy
(Naps et. al, (2002)
Human Memory Model
(Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971)
Performance
Test
Self-Efficacy
Learning Support Tool

Program Visualization as learning aids is appropriate to be developed to help
students understand the implementation of the program code.

However, using purely PV without implementing effective learning strategies
and appropriate will not produce optimal learning effect on students'
programming performance.

Thus, students should be actively involved using VP for new knowledge and
help them to develop confidence in mastering the basic concepts of
programming.


CONCLUSION