Introducing a Practical Educational Tool for Correlating Algorithm Time Complexity with Real Program Execution

Abstract

Algorithm time complexity is an important topic to be learned for programmer; it could define whether an algorithm is practical to be used on real environment or not. However, learning such material is not a trivial task. Based on our informal observation regarding students’ test, most of them could not correlate Big-Oh equation to real program execution. This paper proposes JCEL, an educational tool that acts as a supportive tool for learning algorithm time complexity. Using this tool, user could learn how to correlate Big-Oh equation with real program execution by providing three components: a Java source code, source code input set, and time complexity equations. According to our evaluation, students feel that JCEL is helpful for learning the correlation between Big-Oh equation and real program execution. Further, the use of Pearson correlation in JCEL shows a promising result.