TY - GEN
T1 - A Concept of Value Trace Problem for Java Code Reading Education
AU - Zaw, Khin Khin
AU - Funabiki, Nobuo
PY - 2016/1/6
Y1 - 2016/1/6
N2 - To assist Java programming educations, we have developed a Web-based Java Programming Learning Assistant System (JPLAS). JPLAS provides the fill-in-blank problem to help novice students studying Java programming at home, where some elements in a high-quality code including reserved words, identifiers, and control symbols are blanked to be filled by students. Unfortunately, this problem may be solved without reading out the algorithm in the code if students are familiar with Java grammar to some extent. In this paper, to further cultivate the code reading capability of students, we propose a concept of the value trace problem to ask the actual values of important variables in a code implementing some fundamental data structure or algorithm. A value trace problem can be generated by: 1) selecting a high-quality class code for the algorithm to be studied, 2) making the main class to instantiate the class in 1) if it does not contain the main method, 3) adding the functions to output variable values in questions into a text file, 4) preparing the input file to the code in 3) if necessary, 5)running this code to obtain the set of variable values in the text file, 6) blanking some values from the text file to be filled by students, and 7) uploading the final code, the blanked text file, and the correct answer file into the JPLAS server, and adding the brief description on the algorithm for a new assignment. To verify the feasibility of this concept, we manually generated five problems and asked four students with high Java programming skills in our group to solve them. Then, we analyzed the difficulty of the value trace problem for Quick Sort.
AB - To assist Java programming educations, we have developed a Web-based Java Programming Learning Assistant System (JPLAS). JPLAS provides the fill-in-blank problem to help novice students studying Java programming at home, where some elements in a high-quality code including reserved words, identifiers, and control symbols are blanked to be filled by students. Unfortunately, this problem may be solved without reading out the algorithm in the code if students are familiar with Java grammar to some extent. In this paper, to further cultivate the code reading capability of students, we propose a concept of the value trace problem to ask the actual values of important variables in a code implementing some fundamental data structure or algorithm. A value trace problem can be generated by: 1) selecting a high-quality class code for the algorithm to be studied, 2) making the main class to instantiate the class in 1) if it does not contain the main method, 3) adding the functions to output variable values in questions into a text file, 4) preparing the input file to the code in 3) if necessary, 5)running this code to obtain the set of variable values in the text file, 6) blanking some values from the text file to be filled by students, and 7) uploading the final code, the blanked text file, and the correct answer file into the JPLAS server, and adding the brief description on the algorithm for a new assignment. To verify the feasibility of this concept, we manually generated five problems and asked four students with high Java programming skills in our group to solve them. Then, we analyzed the difficulty of the value trace problem for Quick Sort.
KW - JPLAS
KW - Java programming education
KW - algorithm
KW - code reading
KW - fill-in-blank problem
KW - value trace problem
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84964355261&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84964355261&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/IIAI-AAI.2015.188
DO - 10.1109/IIAI-AAI.2015.188
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84964355261
T3 - Proceedings - 2015 IIAI 4th International Congress on Advanced Applied Informatics, IIAI-AAI 2015
SP - 253
EP - 258
BT - Proceedings - 2015 IIAI 4th International Congress on Advanced Applied Informatics, IIAI-AAI 2015
A2 - Hirokawa, Sachio
A2 - Hashimoto, Kiyota
A2 - Matsuo, Tokuro
A2 - Mine, Tsunenori
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 4th IIAI International Congress on Advanced Applied Informatics, IIAI-AAI 2015
Y2 - 12 July 2015 through 16 July 2015
ER -