Teaching and Learning with BlueJ: Evaluation of a Pedagogical Tool

Haaster, Kelsey Leigh Van; Hagan, Dianne

doi:10.28945/2798

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In addition, the IDE uses a Code Pad tool to instantly evaluate arbitrary expressions and phrases written in Java. In the body of literature, we can find studies about BlueJ, for example, in [Van Haaster and Hagan, 2004], the paper reports that the students preferred to use BlueJ instead of SDK of Java. Another study highlights that BlueJ has been used to carry out heuristic evaluations [Kölling and McKay, 2016].…”

Section: Visual Studiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluations of Integrated Programming Environment for First-Year Students in Computer Engineering

Salinas¹,

Leger²,

Fukuda³

et al. 2023

jucs

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Many factors influence the problems that currently exist in the learning-teaching process of programming. The use of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) makes the experience a complicated process because these IDEs focus on professional programmers and not on novice learners. This also affects the classrooms of the university “Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV)” (Chile). The use of professional IDEs negatively affects the learning process of first-year students who face the development of the algorithms for the first time. One of the IDE widely used for teaching programming courses is Code::Blocks, which is a tool for professional developers. Through a heuristic and usability evaluation, we found that Code::Blocks has a complex user interface and a functional overload. Using these two findings, as well as recommendations given during these tests, we highlight the important aspects that an IDE for novice learners should have. Taking into account previous observations and state-of-the-art/practice of IDEs, a functional IDE prototype, named Incre-IDLE, is developed. In addition to Code::Blocks evaluations, this paper reports the results of a heuristic and usability evaluation applied to first-year students at PUCV about functionalities provided by Incre-IDLE. These results suggest that Incre-IDLE has a simple interface, is easy to install and use, and does not have functional overload (i.e., spend a considerable amount of time learning the tool). Concretely, the results show that 66.7% of the students could complete tasks easily and 100% of them found the GUI intuitive. In terms of GUI, 83.3% considered the application interface “very simple”; and the text, concepts, and icons “very understandable” by 66.7%. The students also found the tool “motivating” (66.7%) or “very motivating” (33.3%). These results closely match the findings obtained by the heuristic evaluation of Incre-IDLE from the experts: 83.3% of them rated it as “useful” or “very useful”, and only a 16.7% rated it as “useless”.

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Section: Visual Studiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluations of Integrated Programming Environment for First-Year Students in Computer Engineering

Salinas¹,

Leger²,

Fukuda³

et al. 2023

jucs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…BlueJ gives the students a graphical picture of the classes and the objects in the system, allows students to interact with them directly, and simplifies the testing of methods and classes. [4] Through use of these two visual environments we aim to achieve more success with the performance of CS1 students.…”

Section: Tamar Vilnermentioning

confidence: 99%

Difficulties teaching Java in CS1 and how we aim to solve them

et al. 2005

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In 1971 Dijkstra noted that as a teacher of programming he 'feels akin to a teacher of composition at a conservatory. He does not teach his pupils how to compose a particular symphony, he must help his pupils to find their own style and must explain to them what is implied by this' [1]. In similar vein, Don Knuth suggests that 'computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty' [2].Traditionally, most Computer Science programs offer an introductory programming methodology course (CS1). In recent years, many institutions have subjected this course to major changes. One common alteration has been a move from a procedural paradigm to an Object Oriented (OO) paradigm. In many cases, this is manifested as a change to programming in Java. Emerging from this transition is the apparent anomaly that many students fail to understand OOP concepts, especially when required to use them in problem solving.Our panel represents researchers from four different countries who have all encountered such problems with a CS1 course. In this light, the panel focuses on CS1 difficulties and aims to address solutions to the 'Java problem'. Although we bring our own insights to the considered issues, we aim to engage the panel audience in discussing the nature of the problem and the propriety of the proposed solutions.

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“…Data collection is now more automated, and analysis of these data would help researchers to understand the shortcomings of students. Commonly mentioned platforms are WebCAT [13], [14] , BlueJ [15], [16], and BlueJ extensions [17], CodeWrite [18] and its plugins, and Athene [19]. For example, Brown et al [20] described how Blackbox is used to collect information submitted by…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amelioration of Teaching Strategies by Exploring Code Quality and Submission Behavior

Bai

Wang

2019

IEEE Access

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Online learning platforms provide an opportunity to better understand students' weaknesses by tracking both their learning behavior and knowledge. This information can then be used to assist teachers in making instructional decisions and to further guide those who are at risk of failure. In this paper, we tracked student learning data from a C++ programming course over a whole semester of their freshman year via the Trustie platform. A total of 17,854 code submissions were collected. We then used CppCheck, SonarQube and Trustie to capture the quality characteristics and submission characteristics of the code, including lineOfCode, cyclomaticComplexity, codeSmell, syntacticError, averageScore, submission, and logicError, and analyzed the impact of code quality on the assignment work results. Several factors were discovered that we believe can help teachers to develop more effective teaching strategies. INDEX TERMS Engineering students, code quality, programming course, teaching strategy.

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Teaching and Learning with BlueJ: Evaluation of a Pedagogical Tool

Cited by 11 publications

References 14 publications

Evaluations of Integrated Programming Environment for First-Year Students in Computer Engineering

Evaluations of Integrated Programming Environment for First-Year Students in Computer Engineering

Difficulties teaching Java in CS1 and how we aim to solve them

Amelioration of Teaching Strategies by Exploring Code Quality and Submission Behavior

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