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Algorithm visualization in CS education: comparing levels of student engagement

Software technology for algorithm visualization (AV) has advanced faster than our understanding of how such technology impacts student learning. In this paper we present results of a multi-university study. We measured the effect of varying levels of student engagement with AV to learn simple sorting algorithms. These levels included: 1) not seeing any visualization, 2) simply viewing visualizations for a short period in the classroom, and 3) interacting directly with the visualizations for an extended period outside of the classroom. Our results show that learning increases as the level of student engagement increases. AV has a bigger impact on learning when students go beyond merely viewing a visualization and are required to engage in additional activities structured around the visualization. In particular, students who responded to questions integrated into the AV tool during their exploration of an algorithm showed the most improvement between a pretest and posttest.