During automatic program animation, explanations after animations have greater impact than before animations
Peng Wang, Roman Bednarik, Andrés Moreno · 2012
Little is known about the effectiveness of automatic explanations in educational program visualization. We designed a study in which the order of animations and related explanations was manipulated. Two groups of a total of 18 participants interacted with either animation-first or explanation-first version of a tool. The results indicate that animation-first approach is significantly more effective. On the grounds of these findings and students' input about the explanation generation and layout, we discuss the design implications of the findings.