University students learning object-oriented programming (OOP) encounter many complexities. This study undertook empirical research aimed at analysing learners’ interactions with the Alice visual programming environment, which seeks to engage and motivate learners to grasp concepts of OOP, whilst creating animated movies and video games. A mixed-methods approach was employed, using questionnaire surveys and interviews to investigate learners’ experiences with Alice and their understanding of OOP. Findings indicated that learners lacked problem-solving abilities; were unable to grasp programming concepts on an abstract level and spent insufficient time practicing programming exercises. Alice proved to be an effective tool in helping to address these challenges and in improving learners’ grasp of OOP. Learners found Alice to have good usability. Furthermore, test and exam results revealed a statistically significant difference between performances of learners who had been taught Alice in comparison to similar learners who were not exposed to the Alice intervention. / Computing / Information Systems / M. Sc. (Information systems)

University students learning object-oriented programming (OOP) encounter many complexities. This study undertook empirical research aimed at analysing learners’ interactions with the Alice visual programming environment, which seeks to engage and motivate learners to grasp concepts of OOP, whilst creating animated movies and video games. A mixed-methods approach was employed, using questionnaire surveys and interviews to investigate learners’ experiences with Alice and their understanding of OOP. Findings indicated that learners lacked problem-solving abilities; were unable to grasp programming concepts on an abstract level and spent insufficient time practicing programming exercises. Alice proved to be an effective tool in helping to address these challenges and in improving learners’ grasp of OOP. Learners found Alice to have good usability. Furthermore, test and exam results revealed a statistically significant difference between performances of learners who had been taught Alice in comparison to similar learners who were not exposed to the Alice intervention. / Computing / Information Systems / M. Sc. (Information systems)

This thesis examines integration testing of object-oriented software. The process of integrating and testing procedural programs is reviewed as foundation for testing object-oriented software. The complexity of object-oriented software is examined. The relationship of integration testing and the software development life cycle is presented. Scenarios are discussed which account for the introduction of defects into the software. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is chosen for representing pre-implementation and post-implementation models of the software. A demonstration of the technique of using post-implementation models representing the logical and physical views as an aid in integration and system testing of the software is presented. The use of UML diagrams developed from the software is suggested as a technique for integration testing of object-oriented software. The need for automating the data collection and model building is recognized. The technique is integrated into the Revised Spiral Model for Object-Oriented Software Development developed by du Plessis and van der Walt. / Computing / D.Phil. (Computer Science)