TY - GEN
T1 - PVC
T2 - 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2018
AU - Ishizue, Ryosuke
AU - Washizaki, Hironori
AU - Sakamoto, Kazunori
AU - Fukazawa, Yoshiaki
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by JST Presto Grant Number JPMJPR14D4.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.
PY - 2018/2/21
Y1 - 2018/2/21
N2 - Many researchers have proposed program visualization tools for memory management because this is a challenging concept for novice programmers. For example, SeeC and PythonTutor (PT) are state-of-the-art tools for C languages. However, three problems hinder the use of these and other tools: capability (P1), installability (P2), and usability (P3). (P1) Tools do not fully support dynamic memory allocation or File Input / Output (I/O) and Standard Input. (P2) Novice programmers often have difficulty installing SeeC due to its dependence on Clang and setting up an offline environment that uses PT. (P3) Revisualization of the modified source code in SeeC requires several steps. To alleviate these issues, we propose a new visualization tool called PlayVisualizerC (PVC). PVC, which is designed for novice C language programmers to provide solutions (S1-3) for P1-3. S1 offers complete support for dynamic memory allocation, standard I/O, and file I/O. S2 involves installation in a user web browser and its server program is initiated by executing a jar file. S3 reduces the steps required for revisualization. To evaluate PVC, we conducted an experiment and questionnaire involving 30 students. Students using PVC solved a set of four programming tasks on average 1.7 times faster and with 19% more correct answers than those using a current state-of-the-art visualization tool.
AB - Many researchers have proposed program visualization tools for memory management because this is a challenging concept for novice programmers. For example, SeeC and PythonTutor (PT) are state-of-the-art tools for C languages. However, three problems hinder the use of these and other tools: capability (P1), installability (P2), and usability (P3). (P1) Tools do not fully support dynamic memory allocation or File Input / Output (I/O) and Standard Input. (P2) Novice programmers often have difficulty installing SeeC due to its dependence on Clang and setting up an offline environment that uses PT. (P3) Revisualization of the modified source code in SeeC requires several steps. To alleviate these issues, we propose a new visualization tool called PlayVisualizerC (PVC). PVC, which is designed for novice C language programmers to provide solutions (S1-3) for P1-3. S1 offers complete support for dynamic memory allocation, standard I/O, and file I/O. S2 involves installation in a user web browser and its server program is initiated by executing a jar file. S3 reduces the steps required for revisualization. To evaluate PVC, we conducted an experiment and questionnaire involving 30 students. Students using PVC solved a set of four programming tasks on average 1.7 times faster and with 19% more correct answers than those using a current state-of-the-art visualization tool.
KW - C language
KW - Visualization
KW - Web application
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046077908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85046077908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3159450.3159566
DO - 10.1145/3159450.3159566
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85046077908
T3 - SIGCSE 2018 - Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
SP - 245
EP - 250
BT - SIGCSE 2018 - Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 21 February 2018 through 24 February 2018
ER -