Graphical Tutoring of Message Passing to Promote Understanding of Java Framework

Many students feel that Java programming is difficult. It attributes to the difficulty of programming with Java frameworks and the problem of the programming education environment. This paper proposes a method that supports learners to understand Java frameworks. The method provides self-study support environment to bridge a lecture and a programming exercise. This environment uses the sequence diagram to provide a learner with knowledge to describe messages. The method enables to guide a learner, checking code dependency and reference of variables while the learner specifies his program. An experiment has proved that the method improves understanding of learners.