Seeing Is Understanding: The Effect of Visualisation in Understanding Programming Concepts

Seeing is Understanding details an exploration into the use of visualisation to support the development of cognitive mental models. It demonstrates that when complex concepts are being learnt, the mixing of auditory (or text) and visual elements can result in excessive cognitive load and impede learning. Seeing is Understanding also extends the use of mental model theory to track the learning process for computer programming languages and forwards an explanation for failures in previous software visualisation studies. Finally, the findings contained in Seeing is Understanding provide an example framework for selecting the most appropriate instructional programming language based on the cognitive complexity of the concepts under study.