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Improving Java Learning Outcome with Interactive Visual Tools in Higher Education

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Artificial Intelligence in Education: Emerging Technologies, Models and Applications (AIET 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies ((LNDECT,volume 104))

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  • 2 Citations

Abstract

The object-oriented theory has been widely used in software design and development and Java programming language is a popular object-oriented programming language for computer science related majors in higher education. With the huge demand for intelligent manufacturing employees in the work market, more and more universities have listed Java programming language in their curriculum for non-CS undergraduates. However, learning object-oriented programming languages, such as Java, is tough even for CS students. This paper presents how to improve non-CS undergraduate students’ learning outcomes of java language by adopting industry standard professional integrated development tool Eclipse and interactive visual educational tool BlueJ. Our Java programming language course is an alternative 8-week course including 16 h lecture and 16 h lab. Forty-seven junior students from mechanical engineering major were divided into two groups, 23 in the control group (CG) and 24 in the experimental group (EG). Students in both groups used Eclipse to write and run programs during the course while BlueJ was adopted to demonstrate the object-oriented concepts during the fifth and sixth weeks only for students in the EG. A pre-test, which was taken by students from both groups, shows no statistical differences in programming knowledge between the two groups. Results from the post-test at the end of the sixth week show students in EG achieved better performance than students in CG. Results of the survey for the EG reveal that students thought BlueJ was helpful for mastering the concepts of object-oriented programming.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the Talent Development Project from the Ministry of Education of Chinese of the People’s Republic of China (grant: No.201802048023) and the Education Reform Project from Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication (grant NO.22150120030).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, Beijing, China

    Yongbin Zhang, Ronghua Liang, Ye Li & Guowei Zhao

Authors
  1. Yongbin Zhang
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  2. Ronghua Liang
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  3. Ye Li
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  4. Guowei Zhao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yongbin Zhang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Eric C. K. Cheng

  2. School of Education, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Rekha B. Koul

  3. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Tianchong Wang

  4. CCNU-UOW Joint Institute, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Xinguo Yu

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Zhang, Y., Liang, R., Li, Y., Zhao, G. (2022). Improving Java Learning Outcome with Interactive Visual Tools in Higher Education. In: Cheng, E.C.K., Koul, R.B., Wang, T., Yu, X. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education: Emerging Technologies, Models and Applications. AIET 2021. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 104. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7527-0_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7527-0_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-7526-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-7527-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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