A MOBILE

INTELLIGENT
TUTORING
SYSTEM FOR JAVA
PROGRAMMING

Abstract - This research

provides an entertaining

and

mobile

intelligent tutoring system

that aims to help the users

to learn and enhance their

creative, critical thinking,

logical and programming

skills in java using smart

phones. It also aims to help

those users who want to

learn

outside

classrooms

useful

the

laboratories.

traditional

more

about
or

java

computer

Mobile

Intelligent Tutoring System

is an android application

that can help students who

have their hardness and

difficulties

in

Java

Programming. The application shows random questions and verifies if the source code that was submitted
by the user was achieved the desired output or not.
Keywords - Intelligent Tutoring System, Mobile Intelligent Tutoring System, Smart phones, Java Programming.
I.

INTRODUCTION

Computers have been employed to achieve a variety of educational goals since the early 1960s. Some of these
goals include automated testing and practice tasks that have been mechanized with earlier technologies, as far
back as the thirties. Other computer assisted instructional programs engage the students in challenging reasoning
tasks. Computer-based instruction has successfully penetrated all education and training markets: home, schools,
universities, business, and government. These days through the use of wireless mobile technology these
computer based instructions have been moved off the desktop. This allows anyone to access information and
learning materials anytime, anywhere. Therefore, learners can use these applications whatever, whenever they
want. This has provided a focal point for educational providers and developers to create best practices and
methodologies foe implementing such systems, thus the introduction of Mobile Intelligent Tutoring Systems.
With the wide usage of Smart Phones nowadays, many developers create Intelligent Tutoring System on Smart
phones providing a lot of instructional materials and exercises to the end users especially students but also
guarantee an effective learning and offer an optimal learning path for a student, with more advanced computing
capability and connectivity than cellular phones. Mobile tutoring systems has three fields of research that
contributes to its design and implementation. These are (1) Intelligent Tutoring Systems which is a platform to
improve student learning, (2) Mobile HCI which contributes an understanding of how to design applications for
enjoyable user experiences, and (3) Mobile Learning which contribute an understanding of how to integrate
mobile learning applications into existing classroom settings. [1]

Figure 1
Integration of disciplines of Mobile Tutoring Systems
Intelligent tutoring system is computer system designed to support and improves the learning and teaching
process of the domain knowledge. It uses knowledge for pedagogical process so that the system tries to
determine what the particular student knows or does not know. Intelligent tutoring system is educational
software that contains an artificial intelligence component that can track students work and feedback. By
collecting information of the users performance, the software can determine the strength and weaknesses, and
suggests some additional work to enhance the knowledge of the user. It can able to assist not only the student
but also the teachers knowledge in developing and managing courses. Most of the computer-based instructional
application and system, like Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) still resides primarily on desktop. ITS shown a
highly successful on improving the students learning skills in classroom or computer labs. When ITS is
integrated in school curriculum, students uses the tutor during school hour.
Mobile Learning is an activity that allow the individual to be more creating information through a compact
digital portable device like smart phone that can easily carried by an individual.

[3]

Mobile Intelligent tutoring

system have the potential to deliver the significant advantages of ITS to a wide audience outside the traditional
classrooms or computer labs. Through the use of smart phone those computers based instructional have been
moved off the desktop. [1]
To develop a mobile intelligent tutoring system, three fields must be considered, first intelligent tutoring system
which is a platform to improve the knowledge, second mobile HCI which contributes on how to design an
application, and, lastly, mobile learning which contributes an understanding of how to integrate learning mobile
application. [2]
Mobile learning is any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with,
or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a
regular basis has reliable connectivity and fits in a pocket or purse. [4]
Intelligent tutoring systems are generation of systems intended for support and improvement of the learning and
teaching process. It represents a particular king of e-learning systems, which base their operation on the
simulation of a human teacher in the learning and teaching process. Intelligent tutoring systems adjust to

individual students needs in the following ways: (i) by varying the difficulty level of teaching content presented
to a student, (ii) adjusting presentation manner, (iii) by providing help to a student depending on his behavior
during the system use and (iv) by adjusting the processing order of individual teaching units. [5]
computer based-instructional systems have become predominant and have found as an effective teaching tool.
Developing intelligent tutor for debugging errors requires an interface that helps students correctly understand
the meaning of the compilation errors and incorporate the findings to the introductory class as the knowledge
base of the tutoring system. It will allow student to understand the error in the program better. [6]
Rodrigo et. Al observed that good students tend to experience more flow, less boredom and less confusion than
students who are struggling. Their study tends to track student performance using subsequent interactions with
the student. Learning involves affect. Affect pertains to a broad class of mental processes, including feelings,
emotions, and moods that they bring to bear on a task. Student are more motivated when they feel optimistic
about their goals and the chances of meeting them and when students are more excited after success. [7]
In additional, Bate reported that intelligent tutoring systems are a subtype of computer-based learning system
that makes use of artificial intelligence to teaching effectiveness. ITSs are designed to provide to students with
individualized explanations, exercises remediation to help them learn the curriculum within ITSs domain. Past
uses of ITSs found that it increases student achievement by up to 100%. [8]
II.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The focus of this study is to help the students, programmer, and anyone on the field of computer programming
who wants to test or to understand the concept of java programming. The application only covers basic java
programming like Variables, Boolean, Strings, etc. It has two types of modes, 1 the Relax mode and 2 Timer
mode. Relax mode lets the user to choose the coding problems from each category. Timer mode, random
question and has 10 minutes is given to the user to solve the coding problems.
It gives feedbacks to the user after checking the answer but it would not give any suggestions how to solve the
problem nor show the logical error. It would only interpret the code submitted by the user and identify whether
the output is right or wrong. The application only runs on smart phone that supports 480 X 320 resolution and
above versions of Android like version 2.2 (Froyo) and above.
The researcher believes that this research would be very beneficial to the following:
1.

Application developers. This application will help the application developers to familiarize on computer
hardware.

2.

Computer Science Student. This application will help the students to test their java programming skills

3.

Programmers. This application will enhance the creative thinking and programming skills of the user.

4.

Future Researchers. This research will help the future researchers to enhance their creativity and critical
thinking.

A. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
In this part, conceptual framework of the study is discussed. A conceptual framework is used to present the
outline or the flow of the application. (See figure 2)

Figure 2
Conceptual Framework of the study
Figure 2 shows the user interacts with the application interface through answering some problems. The
application interface will then call the content storage for storing the number of completed problems. The user
will submit his answer through source code he created on the interface of the application and the ITS will
interpret the codes submitted and validate of the answer is correct or not. The application will then give
feedbacks, after the program execution or running the codes, to the user to be displayed on the application
interface.
III.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The main concern of this research is to create a mobile application that would help anyone who wants to learn
and enhance their java programming skills and to let them understand the concept to java programming. The
researcher aims to answer the following question:
1.

What are the design considerations for the development of software?

a)

Algorithm;

b) Data structure;
c)

Architectural design; and

d) Code optimize
2.

What are the hardware and software requirements to implement the research?

3.

What is the level of acceptability in terms of:

a)

usability

b) efficiency
c)

Reliability

IV.

METHODOLOGY

The researchers applied the Constructive Research in developing the proposed mobile application. Constructive
Research is the most common method that was usually used in computer science. It aims to produce novel
solution to practically and theoretically relevant problems.
A. Sampling Techniques
The researchers used the Purposive Sampling to select units to be sampled based from different group of
questions in the proposed application. The researchers conducted an interview to several respondents to probe
deeper their responses and to ensure the responses were properly understood.
a.

Interview. Direct face-to-face attempts to obtain reliable and valid measures in the form of verbal
responses from one or more respondents.

b.

Questionnaire. It reduced bias because there was uniform question presentation to the respondents.
The researchers own opinion will not influence the respondent to answer questions in a certain
manner. And it became even more cost effective as the number of research questions increases.

B. Software Development Method

In this part, it shows what method is used to build the application. The researchers used the Agile Model in
developing the proposed mobile application. (See figure 3)

Figure 3
Agile Model
Agile Model. Agile modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software systems based on
best practices. It is a collection of values and principles, that can be applied on an (agile) software development
project. This methodology is more flexible than traditional modeling methods, making it a better fit in a fast
changing environment. It is part of the Agile software development tool kit.
V.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

a. Algorithm
Performing sequence of actions in a specific order can help solving a computing problem, this is called
an algorithm. Algorithm is also used to have a deep understanding on the process of the program and to
fully arranged the approach in developing the application.
b. Data Structure
A data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used
efficiently. The following figures are the representation of data structures used in Mobile Intelligent
Tutoring System.

Figure 6
List
List. It is an abstract data type that implements an ordered collection of values, where the same value may
occur more than once.
In Mobile Intelligent Tutoring System, several different implements of a List are used to better
manipulate data and promote code optimization.
c. Architectural Design
A UML (Unified Modeling Language) is used to specify, visualize, modify, construct, and document
the artifacts of an object-oriented software-intensive system under development. UML is used in order to
show the architectural design of the proposed software.
Use Case Diagram. A graphical list of steps, typically defining interactions between a role (known in
UML as an actor) and a system, to achieve a goal. The actor can be a human or an external system. In
systems engineering, use cases are used at a higher level than within software engineering, often
representing missions or stakeholder goals.

Figure 5
The researchers present the use case diagram for mobile intelligent tutorial system. Figure 5 shows that the
user can start the application by choosing modes between time mode and relax mode. Both relax and time
mode can perform the same action, except for the time mode that has a timer for answering the question.
d. Code Optimize
The researchers created quality assurance checklists to conduct white box testing of the software.
Result of the Evaluated Software
Criteria
Usability
Efficiency
Reliability
Total

Mean
3.33
2.32
2.80
2.81

Verbal Interpretation
Good
Fair
Good
Good

With a weighted mean of 3.33 interpreted as GOOD was rated for the usability for proposed system. In terms of
efficiency a weighted mean of 2.32 which interpreted as FAIR. The researchers saw the software is fast in
completing a task and saw that the software responds depending on how long the source a user interpreted to the
software. A weighted mean of 2.80 interpreted as GOOD was rated for the reliability because the software is
consistent in performing a task.
A total Weighted Mean of 2.81, the software was evaluated as GOOD was formulated according to the
researchers evaluation. Therefore the software passes the evaluation.
Acknowledgement
The researcher would like to acknowledge several individuals who contributed and extended their assistance in
preparation and during the development of the research. Their guidance and wisdom played an important part in
the completion this academic requirement.
Our deep gratitude goes to our CS coordinator; Dr. Albert A. Vinluan whose leadership became the main
guidance of our journey while fulfilling all the requirements of our beloved course.
And of course to our family especially our parents for their undying love and support both emotionally and
financially. To our friends and classmates who also helped us in our research.
Above all else, all of these would not be possible if not for our God Almighty. He gave us courage, knowledge,
patience, strength and wisdom the made it possible for us to reach the end goal of our study.
References
[1] Brown, Quincy; Mobile intelligent Tutoring System: Moving Intelligent Tutoring System of the Desktop
(2009)
[2] Brown, Quincy; The Design of Mobile Intelligent Tutoring System (2011)
[3] Stevens, Dawn, and Kitchenham, Andrew, (2011); An analysis of Mobile Learning in Education, Business
and Medicine; Models for Interdisciplinary Mobile Learning: Delivering Information to Students (pp. 1-15)

[5] Glavinic, Vlado; Rosic, Marco, and Zelic, Marija, (2008); Intelligent Tutoring in the Semantic Web and Web
2.0 Environments; Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Part III (pp. 172-173); Springer Berlin
Heidelberg; Germany
[6] Go, Janssen Marwin L. Ligunas, Maria Clarrise T. Rodrigo, Ma. Mercedes T.; Developing an Intelligent
Tutor for Debugging; 2011 Philippine Computing Society Congress, Ateneo de Naga, (2011)
[7] Rodrigo, Ma. Mercedes T., and Lagud, Maria Carminda V.; The Affective and Learning Profiles of Students
Using an Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Algebra; 10th Intelligent Tutoring Systems (2010); Springer Berlin
Heidelberg; Germany
[8] Bate, Allan Edgar C., Rodrigo, Ma. Mercedes T.; Automatic Detection of Student Off-Task Behavior while
Using an Intelligent Tutor for Algebra (2010), Ateneo de Manila, Philippines