Implementation of the concept-driven approach in an object-oriented analysis and design course

Abstract

One of the most important tasks in object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is the abstraction of the problem domain into specific concepts or objects. Information technology (IT) students need appropriate skills of abstraction in order to identify the essential concepts and relationships within a problem domain. However students in higher education generally find difficulty performing abstractions of real-world problems within the context of OOAD. In this paper, we present a framework comprising four teaching modules for teaching object-oriented (OO) modelling using concept maps. We also report results of an evaluative study on the effectiveness of integrating concept mapping techniques into an introductory OOAD course by classifying the UML diagrams produced by the participants in design categories. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.