Revealing Students´ UML Class Diagram Modelling Strategies with WebUML and LogViz

This paper aims to reveal the most common strategies students use to create class designs. We show our approach of logging students´ modelling activities while doing a software design task. We developed our own online modelling editor ´Web UML´ and visualisation tool ´Log Viz´ for the logging and interpretation of the log files. As follow-up students filled-in a brief questionnaire targeting their time spent and difficulties in performing the task. The results show that the students use different strategies for solving the tasks. We categorised these strategies into four main strategies: Depthless, Depth First, Breadth First and Ad Hoc. From our results Depth First indicates to support better layout and richness (detail). From the questionnaire students mention choosing the appropriate UML elements is a difficult and time consuming task. We want to use our insights to improve our educational programs and tools. In the future we want to test Web UML and Log Viz in larger educational contexts.