The Use of Color Gradation on Program Visualization for Learning Programming

According to several works, Program Visualization (PV) enhances student understanding further about how a particular program works. However, to our knowledge, no PVs utilize color gradation as a part of their features, even though color plays an important role in visualization. Therefore, two uses of color gradation on PV are proposed on this paper. On the one hand, color gradation can be used to display execution frequency of each instruction; instruction with higher execution frequency will be assigned with more-prominent color. Such piece of information is expected to help student for understanding program complexity. On the other hand, color gradation can also be used to display access frequency of each variable; variable with higher access frequency will be assigned with more-prominent color. Such piece of information is expected to help student for understanding program-to-variable dependency. Both uses are proved to be effective for learning programming according to our evaluation. Index Terms—program visualization, color gradation, program complexity, program-to-variable dependency, computer science education

Social Worked-Examples Technique to Enhance Student Engagement in Program Visualization

Learning programming is among the top challenges in computer science education. A part of that, program visualization (PV) is used as a tool to overcome the high failure and drop-out rates in an introductory programming course. Nevertheless, there are rising concerns about the effectiveness of the existing PV tools following the mixed results derived from various studies. Student engagement is also considered a vital factor in building a successful PV, while it is also an important part of the learning process in general. Several techniques have been introduced to enhance PV engagement; however, student engagement with PV is still challenging. This paper employed three theories—constructivism, social constructivism and cognitive load to propose a technique for enhancing student engagement with program visualisation. The social worked-examples (SWE) technique transforms the traditional worked-example into a social activity, whereby a greater focus is placed on the collaboration role in constructing students’ knowledge. This study identified three principles that could enhance student engagement through the SWE technique: active learning, social collaboration and low-load activity.

COGNITIVE ACTIVITY IN THE RESPECT OF QEEG RESEARCH - PRESENTATION OF LABORATORY TESTS

The article presents the methodology of laboratory tests carried out in the Laboratory of Experimental Research Biofeedback of the Jan Dlugosz University in Czestochowa (Poland) regarding the evaluation of education effectiveness by registering brain wave activity using electroencephalographic research (EEG method). The research results indicate that, depending on the form of the computer program visualization, a change in the activity of SMR, Beta1, Beta2 and Gamma waves was observed. The results are presented in the form of graphs and 2D brain activity images using the equipment Mitsar EEG 202 and WinEEG software