research-article

Compigorithm: An Interactive Tool for Guided Practice of Complexity Analysis

Authors:

Scott RixnerAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Pages 363 - 369

https://doi.org/10.1145/3341525.3387390

Published: 15 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

It is essential that students learn to write code that is not only correct, but also efficient. To that end, algorithmic complexity analysis techniques, such as Big-O analysis, are typically an important part of courses on algorithm design. However, students often hold fundamental misconceptions about how Big-O analysis works. This paper presents Compigorithm, an interactive tool for helping students practice Big-O analysis. Compigorithm scaffolds student learning by breaking down the analysis process into five concrete steps and walking students through each of these steps. When students make mistakes, they are provided with automated hints and allowed to re-attempt until they get the correct answer. Compigorithm was piloted in an introductory algorithms course and evaluated using a controlled experiment. The experimental group trained by analyzing algorithms using Compigorithm, while the control group analyzed the same algorithms by hand. On the subsequent post-test, the experimental group outperformed the control group by a significant margin (p < 0.00001; Cohen's d = 0.84).

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545947.3576336
Leake MJin KDavis AMueller S(2023)InStitches: Augmenting Sewing Patterns with Personalized Material-Efficient PracticeProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581499(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Chiodini LHauswirth M(2021)Wrong Answers for Wrong Reasons: The Risks of Ad Hoc InstrumentsProceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3488042.3488045(1-11)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2021
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Compigorithm: An Interactive Tool for Guided Practice of Complexity Analysis

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cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 2020

615 pages

ISBN:9781450368742

DOI:10.1145/3341525

General Chairs:
Michail Giannakos
NTNU, Norway
,
Guttorm Sindre
Excited/NTNU, Norway
,
Program Chairs:
Andrew Luxton-Reilly
University of Auckland, NZ
,
Monica Divitini
NTNU, Norway

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 15 June 2020

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ITiCSE '20: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 15 - 19, 2020

Trondheim, Norway

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Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

Haldeman GPizer EHou MRojas MHan KKamran ADoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)RAVICProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3545947.3576336(1391-1391)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545947.3576336
Leake MJin KDavis AMueller S(2023)InStitches: Augmenting Sewing Patterns with Personalized Material-Efficient PracticeProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581499(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581499
Chiodini LHauswirth M(2021)Wrong Answers for Wrong Reasons: The Risks of Ad Hoc InstrumentsProceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3488042.3488045(1-11)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488042.3488045
Albluwi IZeng H(2021)Novice Difficulties with Analyzing the Running Time of Short Pieces of CodeProceedings of the 23rd Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3441636.3441855(1-10)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441636.3441855

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