The Use of Animation as an Educational Tool Research in CSEducation

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The Use of Animation as an Educational Tool
Research in CS-Education

• Ronit Ben-Bassat Levy
• Department of Science Teaching
• Weizmann Institute of Science - Israel

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Introduction

• The Problem - Students have difficulties in
  understanding concepts of algorithms and
  programming.
• Claim - These difficulties are rooted in the lack
  of a viable mental model of how a computer works.
• Previous work

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Research Design

• What is Understanding ?
• Pascal explained by Jeliot (Java tool).
• Long term research.
• Changing Jeliot I.
• Choosing the classes.
• Methode of teaching.
• Evaluating the results.

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Levels of Understanding

• Retrieve factual information.
• Implementation Understanding.
• Analysis.
• Synthesis.
• Abstruction.

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Changes in Jeliot I

• A single window with two panels - code and
  animation.
• All variables are animated.
• Full evaluation of expression and control
  decisions.
• VCR - like controls.
• Animation of I/O.

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Research Type

• Action reserch.
• Comparing between two groups.
• Comparing the levels of understanding.

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Teching Sequence

• New concept was studied for two weeks.
• In - class assignment - pre - test.
• Additional study - Control - Turbo Pascal
  - Animation - Java and
  Jeliot 2000.
• In - class assignment - post - test.
• Interviews.
• Teacher available for questions.

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Analyzation tools

• Quantitative tools - each In - class assignment
  was analyzed separately, comparing the control
  group with the animation group according to
  averages, normalization.
• Comparing each In - classes results separately
  according to students ability strong, mediocre
  and weak levels.

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Analyzation tools

• Qualitative - interviews - comparing the groups
  and students levels.
• Giving verbal explanations for the execution of
  program.

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Results - Quantitative tools

• Control group stronger than the animation group
  from the beginning.
• First significant improvement for the animation
  group in the If-statement. This continues through
  all rest of questionnaires.
• The normalized results shoed that the control
  group could have improved more.

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Results - Qualitative tools

• Interviews - revealed attitudes and way of
  thinking. Students like the Jeliot 2000 animation
  system.
• The stronger students of both groups gave the
  correct answers but they were not sure about it.
• The mediocre students drew Jeliot 2000 display
  and used its verbal explanations to simulate
  execution of the program.

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The mediocre student effect

• The mediocre students profit the most from the
  use of animation. According to the average
  results and the normalized ones.
• Interviews - quicker than all others.

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Special assinments

• Summary assignment - at the end of the year.
• Follow - up assignment - after the first
  trimester of the second year.

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Results - Special assinments

• The animation group used different and better
  vocabulary offered by Jeliot 2000.
• In the follow-up assignment the animation group
  students used step-by-step methode of
  explanations, using symboles from Jeliot 2000.

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Analizing the understanding

• Each question in the in - class assignment was
  analized according to level of understanding.
• The animation helped mostly in the retreival,
  implementation and analysis levels.

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Conclusions

• The animation helpes when it is used in a
  long-term period and in a step-by-step way.
• The animation helped mostly in the retreival,
  implementation and analysis levels.

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Conclusions

• The mediocre students profit from the use of
  animation.
• The animation helped building a useful
  vocabulary, and a model of the way the computer
  works during the execution of a program.

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Thank you