Nowadays,
Flutter with the
Dart programming language has become widely popular in mobile developments, allowing developers to build multi-platform applications using one codebase. An increasing number of companies are adopting these technologies to create scalable and maintainable mobile applications. Despite this increasing relevance,
[...] Read more.
Nowadays,
Flutter with the
Dart programming language has become widely popular in mobile developments, allowing developers to build multi-platform applications using one codebase. An increasing number of companies are adopting these technologies to create scalable and maintainable mobile applications. Despite this increasing relevance, university curricula often lack structured resources for Flutter/Dart, limiting opportunities for students to learn it in academic environments. To address this gap, we previously developed the
Flutter Programming Learning Assistance System (FPLAS), which supports self-learning through interactive problems focused on code comprehension through code-based exercises and visual interfaces. However, it was observed that many students completed the exercises without fully understanding even basic concepts, if they already had some knowledge of
object-oriented programming (OOP). As a result, they may not be able to design and implement
Flutter/Dart codes independently, highlighting a mismatch between the system’s outcomes and intended learning goals. In this paper, we propose a
guided self-study approach of integrating documentation, code, visual output, and exercise in
FPLAS. Two existing problem types, namely,
Grammar Understanding Problems (GUP) and
Element Fill-in-Blank Problems (EFP), are combined together with documentation, code, and output into a new format called
Integrated Introductory Problems (INTs). For evaluations, we generated 16
INT instances and conducted two rounds of evaluations. The first round with 23 master students in Okayama University, Japan, showed high correct answer rates but low usability ratings. After revising the documentation and the system design, the second round with 25 fourth-year undergraduate students in the same university demonstrated high usability and consistent performances, which confirms the effectiveness of the proposal.
Full article