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ASIA LIFE SCIENCES The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences

ISSN 0117-3375

Beyond Excellence ©

VOLUME 24(2) JULY-DECEMBER 2015

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©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd., 2015 Printed in the Philippines

Printed in the Philippines

ASIA LIFE SCIENCES The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences Beyond Excellence©

©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2015

ASIA LIFE SCIENCES - The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences (ISSN 0117-3375) is a non-profit, non-stock refereed scientific journal devoted to the publication of original research in the Life Sciences and related disciplines. Articles originating from anywhere in the world are most welcome. Two issues a year make a volume

BOARD OF EDITORS - Asia Life Sciences 24(2), 2015Chairman & Chief Editor: Dr. William Sm. Gruèzo, Institute of Biological

Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences (CAS), University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), College 4031, Laguna, Philippines.

Members: Dr. Liding Chen, State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shuangqing Road 18, Haidian, Beijing 100085, China. Dr. Leonila A. Corpuz-Raros, Crop Protection Cluster, College of Agriculture, UPLB, College 4031, Laguna. Dr. Maribel L. Dionisio-Sese, Plant Biology Division, Institute of Biological Sciences, CAS-UPLB, College, Laguna. Dr. Irineo J. Dogma Jr., Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, España St., Manila. Dr. Agustine I. Doronila, School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. Dr. Victor P. Gapud, Crop Protection Cluster, College of Agriculture, UPLB, College 4031, Laguna. Dr. Krishlex G. Gruèzo MD, 81 Gov. F.T. San Luis Avenue, Masaya, Bay 4033, Laguna. Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, National Academy of Science and Technology, Level 3, Science Heritage Building, Deparment of Science and Technology Complex, Bicutan, Taguig City, MetroManila. Dr. Tai-hoon Kim, Department of Convergence Security, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Korea. Michael G. Price, P.O. Box 468, Mi Ctr, Michigan 49254, USA.

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ISSN 0117-3375Volume 24, Number 2 July-December 2015

CONTENTS469 A new distribution record of Hoya espaldoniana

Kloppenburg, Siar & Cajano (Section Acanthostemma: Apocynaceae) A.S. Hadsall, M.A.O. Cajano, I.A.F. Lambio & M. Alejado

477 Relationship between above- and below-ground biomass for 18-year-old Abies holophylla under different stand conditions H.-H. Lee & D.-H. Lee

493 The Philippine genus Stilbotes Stal and a new tribe of Asopinae (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) V.P. Gapud

499 Competitive ability of weedy rice against cultivated rice in the Philippines E.C.Martin & I.R. Tanzo

507 Formulation of an environment and social impact assessment tool for small scale economic activities in coastal areas in the Philippines C.A. Cabrido, Jr.

537 Morphological variations of the white goby (Glossogo-bius giuris Hamilton 1822, Teleostei: Gobiidae) in three lakes of Southern Luzon, Philippines J.G. Campang & P.P. Ocampo

Cont. on Next Page

Reviewers for this Issue: Dr. Nelly S. Aggangan, Prof. J.V. Bariuan, Prof. A.R. Buan, Dr. Y.-C. Byun, Dr. L.A. Corpuz-Raros, Dr. V.P. Gapud, Dr. K.G. Gruèzo, Dr. Wm.Sm. Gruèzo, Dr. Y. Janous, Dr. R.L. Lapitan, Dr. X. Liu, Dr. J. Ma, Prof. M. Mallari-Cuerdo, Prof. J.A. Margate, Prof. A.P. Mercado, Prof. R.N. Monte, Prof. O. Motlagh, Dr. O.M. Nuñeza, Prof. R.R. Saplaco, Dr. M. Shojafar, Dr. R. Wang & Dr. D. Zhang.

©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2015 Printed in the Philippines

Contents

559 Guideposts in land use planning and allocation in the Philippines C.A. Cabrido, Jr. & M.L.T. Munarriz

575 Enhancement of growth and yield of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) by actinomycetes J.A. Cruz, E.F. Delfin & E.S. Paterno

585 Using Surestream and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) networks to construct ubiquitous learning environment K.-T. Sun & H.-T. Chan

601 Nature farming and himalayanisation: Food subsistence strategies by the Mangyan Alangan Tribe of Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines A.M.Caringal & J.A.D. Guarde

629 A flowchart-based programming environment for improving problem solving skills of Cs minors in computer programming D. Hooshyar, R.B. Ahmad, S. Shamshirband, M. Yousefi & S.-J. Horng

647 Body image, body mass index and the experience of Hiya in physical education among Filipino female university students Z.R.T. Brebante & J.Y. Cagas

661 Strategic global sourcing: Procurement decision concepts in the aviation manufacturing industry C. Kowalski & M. Fiedler

679 Outdoor activities: Source of healthy living and cultural legacy R.N. Monte, A.R. Buan & J.S. Dela Cruz

689 Effects of microhabitat factors on the distribution of black shama (Copsychus cebuensis Steere) in Argao Watershed Reserve, Cebu, Philippines A.B.B. Malaki

Contents703 Comparison of exercise versus sport participation motives among Filipino university students J.Y. Cagas, E.J. Manalastas, B. Torre & C. Sanchez-Pituk715 Grain-filling process in lowland rice (Oryza sativa L.

‘PSB Rc18’) under water deficit is enhanced by nitrogen fertilization B.U. Tizon-Salazar, P.C. Sta. Cruz, B.M. Salazar, E.A. Aguilar & R.B. Badayos

727 Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) phosphorylates BimEL Ser69 via ERK1/2 pathway Y. Sun, Y. Mao, S. Gu & Y. Xie737 Stressors and stress responses of Filipino college students M.R. Dy, K. Espiritu-Santo, M.P. Ferido & R.D. Sanchez761 Mangamaru: A creative indigenous Kapampangan folkdance (Philippines) M.E. Santos, J.G. Tubera & J.T. Martin 777 Termiticidal activity of wild mushroom species (Agaricus and Hebeloma) C.T. Navalta & T.A. Estrabo789 Family correlates of adolescent volunteerism B.A. Lalap & M.R. Dy809 Characterization and analysis of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) karyotypes O.A. Hagelamin &

A.M.M. Alzahrani823 Strategic logistics planning for flood disaster prevention of economic zones in the Greater Manila Area, Philippines J.T. Castro 841 Determinants of employee’s acceptance of a compressed workweek scheme: A case study

M.B. Sundo, S. Fujii, M.S. Madlangbayan, E.V. Ana & P.P. Velasco

Contents857 Enhancing learning performance using grouping optimization based on social relationships and genetic algorithm C.-Y. Chang, C.-T. Chen, M.-H. Chen, R.-C. Chen & S.-P. Suen865 Reviewers -Asia Life Sciences Volume 24, No. 2, 2015869 Board of Editors -Asia Life Sciences Volume 24, No. 2 2015

Beyond Excellence©

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©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd., Philippines 2015

The papers published in Asia Life Sciences are indexed in theBiological Abstracts, CAB Abstracts, CAB Global Health,

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Asia Life Sciences has an Impact Factor of 0.259.

Asia Life Sciences is a recipient of the Journal AccreditationAward of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED),

Republic of the Philippines (2010-2015).

Printed on acid-free papers

Actual Date of Publication: Asia Life Sciences Volume 24, Number 2 (July-December) 2015 - 30 March 2015.


ASIA LIFE SCIENCES 24(2): 629-646, 2015The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences

Received 26 November 2014; Accepted 24 December 2014©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2015

A flowchart-based programming environment for improving problem solving skills of Cs minors in computer programming

DANIAL HOOSHYAR1*, RODINA BINTI AHMAD1, SHAHABODDIN SHAMSHIRBAND1, MOSLEM YOUSEFI2 and SHI-JINN HORNG3

Novice programmers have a misconception of what programming is in the early stages of learning programming. A Flowchart-based Programming Environment (FPE) is developed in this research with the aim of introducing the early stages of learning programming to clarify matters. An attempt is made to introduce the basic programming algorithms prior to surface structure using an automatic text-to-flowchart conversion approach in order to improve students’ problem-solving skills. Thus, this system allows students to focus less on language and syntax and more on solution designing in the form of flowchart development. The main objective of this study is to support the problem-solving ability through designing activities. How exactly FPE employs text-to-flowchart conversion as a visualization-based approach to provide the students with their final flowchart for subsequent stages of programming is discussed in this paper. The proposed system is evaluated using 50 first-year undergraduate students taking their first introductory courses in programming called “Programming 1” at University of Malaya, who gave very positive feedback. A very awarding finding was that an automatic text-to-flowchart conversion approach applied in FPE successfully motivated almost all participants in problem-solving activities. Consequently, the results suggest further development of a text-to-flowchart conversion approach in the form of a Multi-Agent System (MAS) in future in order to make the early stages of learning programming more encouraging for students.

Keywords: programming environments, novice programmers, visualizations, text-to-flowchart conversion

1Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603, Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2Center for Systems and Machines Intelligence, College of Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, 4300, Kajang, Malaysia

3Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

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Asia Life Sciences 24(2) 2015

IntroduCtIon Computer science and engineering students are required to be able to do

programming, as there are several programming courses in these fields that require programming skills (McCracken et al. 2001). As indicated in literature, there are high dropout and failure rates in initial programming courses. Carter and Jenkins (1999) stated that many students avoid programming in their final year projects on the grounds of either not being able to program or believing they cannot. Lack of problem-solving skills, solution designing and use of programming languages that are often artificial for many students is a reason why learning programming is more difficult (Moser 1997, Pillay 2003, Pillay & Jugoo 2005). However, it should be mentioned that students’ science background and motivation, class size and programming language syntax are other, most often highlighted reasons. Commonly, the majority of students understand the basic programming constructs but are not able to apply them for creating programs to solve problems. Due to the aforementioned reason, it is believed that to compose and coordinate instruction for creating the components of a program is the major problem of countless students (Mayer 1981, Spohrer & Soloway 1985). In our view, programming languages are only a way of expressing solutions while more priority and attention should be given to problem-solving abilities, because basically, learning to solve problems algorithmically contributes to learning to program. Due to the fact that programming skills cannot be absolutely transferred from instructors to students, novices should also actively practice programming to gain knowledge (Boada et al. 2004, Ben-Ari 2001). Although, most students face various difficulties in the preliminary learning stages and are unable to develop solutions for simple problems. This might make them give up trying and lose interest, which leads to dropout and failure. Several programming tools have been developed which instead of focusing on problem solving skills, which are more essential for weaker students, those tools stress more on programming language features. With the hope of solving this difficulty, we developed our flowchart-based programming environment that benefits from an automatic text-to-flowchart conversion approach to enable creating initial solutions for simple problems and to improve problem-solving skills. Natural Language Processing (NLP), Knowledge Base System, Knowledge Expansion, and a Web Crawler (web monitoring service) are Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques applied in our proposed system so as to convert the statement of a given programming problem, here in English, to a relevant flowchart. A Flowchart-based Programming Environment (FPE) tool also contains an online chat and databases improvement process, using web crawler, without human intervention as well as visualization-based approach to support weaker students in creating basic algorithms. Three databases are improvised in the system which the first one contains main programming keywords, the second one used as a dictionary to find synonym and substitution of extracted keyword, and the third one for storing unknown keyword entered by users. An interesting approach has been also utilized in FPE which enables it to even generate the flowchart for the programming problem having no keywords in their statement. The rationale behind the development of FPE is to help students understand the relation between the problem statement exercise, in

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Flowchart-based programming environment


English text here, and its relevant flowchart in order to create an initial solution that can subsequently be improved. Using FPE, the students are guided through a dialogue system chat. This interaction urges students to construct solutions step by step. Novice programmers who have no prior knowledge of programming are the target audience of this research. The main contribution of this work is a novel flowchart-based programming environment benefiting from an automatic text-to-flowchart conversion approach for improving problem-solving skills of novice programmers in a form of solution designing activities. The remaining parts of this paper are dedicated to the following sections: mental model and visualization, the proposed system architecture, evaluation and participants, results and discussion, conclusions and future work.

reLAted workS In an attempt to present programming and its introductory courses to beginners,

iconic based programming and flowchart based notation environments are highly applicable. These environments assist in providing a precise and accurate mental model in addition to providing a conceptual understanding of the vital subjects and their execution, and in a way enhancing the problem-solving abilities of the novice programmers (Moghaddam et al. 2013). However, the majority of flowchart-based programming environments emphasized on flowcharts and the generated code but none has concentrated on automatically converting a given problem, i.e. the English text, to its corresponding flowchart without human intervention. This means that by filling this gap, not only can the problem-solving skills of novice programmers be improved, but also a complete software agent tool can be developed which can replace the role of a programming tutor in the real world for novice programmers, since the process from building a flowchart until coding, debugging, tracing, etc. have already been developed (Hooshyar et al. 2013). This study tries to discover an automatic approach of drawing a flowchart that has been described by those texts (Hooshyar et al. 2014). Currently, very few studies have been done on this subject matter, using keyword matching technique and they are not aimed at improving problem-solving of novice programmers and they are commercial. Although, there have been some attempts such as in LIM-G (Wong et al. 2007), ALBERT (Oberem 1987) and FREEBODY (Oberem et al. 1993) in addition to a few other studies (Koedinger & Sueker 1996, Looi & Tan 1998, Steele & Steele 1999, Wheeler & Regian 1999, Chang et al. 2005, Mukherjee & Garain 2005). LIM-G and ALBERT applied strong NLP (Natural Language Processing) approaches and a restricted knowledge base in order to understand the significant types of school-level mensuration and the problems of physics corresponding to a textual demonstration and offered solutions along with the illustrative diagrams. FREEBODY, although is an adaptation of ALBERT, is a specific software that is able to understand a free body diagram that has been drawn by a beginner and guides the learner to making any corrections. Another system which was developed by Mukherjee, Garain and Biswas (2013) named “Automatic Text-to-Diagram Conversion: a Novel Teaching Aid for the Blind People”, along with the systems developed by ALBERT and LIM-G, are somewhat similar to our proposed system. FPE is able to convert

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text-to-flowchart automatically which simulates human technique of resolving a programming problem as well as providing novices with an online system chat to address their issues during solution designing. The system utilizes an accessible knowledge base source, dialogue-based tutoring system, and innovative intelligent demonstration schemes which are built from various fields such as knowledge presentation, automated reasoning, natural language processing, query expansion, and dialogue-based systems.

tHe propoSed SyStem ArCHIteCture The FPE architecture is shown in Figure 1. The proposed system supports

teaching computer programming to novice programmers. The primary purposes of this system are to support the problem-solving ability through designing activities as well as to show the importance of highlighting the essential principles of various algorithms on a higher level of abstraction.

Figure 1. The architecture of flowchart-based programming environment (FPE).

At this section we focus on the first component, automatic text-to-flowchart conversion, which consists of five main sub-components namely text processing, knowledge-based, query expansion, dialogue-based tutoring system, and a crawler. Firstly, the semantic and syntactic analysis of entered programming problem in English text is performed by Natural Language Processing (NLP) parser module in order to extract keywords out of the textual description. Secondly, a knowledge base is applied in the parser, named D1 containing general programming information

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about all of possible programming problem inputs and programming meaning of the keywords to summarize useful information extracted from the problem. Thirdly, another knowledge base with the name of D2 is applied to expand the query by synonyms words and substitutions’ verbs. Fourthly, a dialogue-based tutoring system is applied to interact with novice programmers and make necessary online guidance to trace the finalized flowchart with the aim of improving solution designing and problem solving skills. Last but not the least, a web crawler is tasked to automatically search the Internet for the new and unknown programming keywords and problems stored in D3 and add the relevant extracted information from the Internet to D1. It is also should be noted that during the engagement of the system with novices using dialogue-based tutoring system, they will be provided with appropriate online feedbacks once the flowchart is being completed. Besides, several pre-defined questions will be asked from users, using online system chat, before and after completing the flowchart. The main purpose of this module is to improve problem-solving skills as well as to support solution designing and design activities. Therefore, by using dialogue-based tutoring system, novice programmers are asked to identify the solution of a given problem, in English text, in a shape of text-to-flowchart conversion along with finding the best possible way to complete and trace the flowchart. It is also should be noted that unlike many other systems, this framework has two parsers in order to simulate the logical and knowledge-based human approach. The first one is applied to analyze the text and to extract useful words out of textual description in order to produce language-free technical summary, while the second one employs the produced technical summaries for further processing and acting on the intermediate representation of the given programming problem maintained by D1 knowledge base. Graphical module generates the needed diagrams by taking each line of the draw-able representation as input. Finally, it invokes the line-draw, point-draw or circle-draw functions and passes the relevant set of data (e.g. coordinate values) as arguments of the functions. And then, by each function in one entity, the relevant result is called to generate digital flowchart on the computer display. By the time that all the entities are drawn consecutively, the whole flowchart takes shape.

dIfferent CAtegorIeS of A gIven probLem Typical problems having keywords. In this type of problem, namely the Factorial, Fibonacci series, palindrome number, quadratic equation, and etc, the proposed system will go through listed process in below:

Text processing including parsing the sentence, noise removal, and main words separation.

Referring to domain-specific knowledge-base, D1, to extract keywords with cross-checking of words with each other.

Extract the relevant information and equation, and to pass them to representation module; and after generating flowchart or sub-flowchart on the screen, the dialogue-based tutoring system start communicating with novices to make sure they comprehend the solution of given problem with giving them some options to trace the generated flowchart.

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Example 1. “Write a program to generate the Fibonacci series”. In this example, after the text processing stage the output will be: to/TO generate/VB the/DT Fibonacci/NN series/NNS.

At the second stage, it goes through D1 knowledge base to find keyword. So, “Fibonacci” and “Fibonacci series” are recognized as keywords and their respective information and equations will be passed to representation module. The corresponding flowchart or sub-flowchart will be generated digitally and then dialogue-based tutoring system starts questioning the novices to assure they fully understand all solution designing stages, or it starts tracing the final flowchart in order to show novices different steps of solution designing so as to improve their problem-solving skills. The screenshot of FPE for example 1 is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Workspace provided by FPE along with generated flowchart and the full flowchart from the Internet.

Typical problems having no keywords.In this type of problems, namely: “Write a program to return largest element in a list”, “Write a program to enter your name and convert to uppercase”, and etc. the developed system will follow the process mentioned in below:

Text processing including parsing the sentence, noise removal and main words separation.

Referring to domain-specific knowledge-base to extract keywords with cross-checking of words with each other.

If no keyword is found, it would be passed to query expansion which affects verbs.

After generating flowchart or sub-flowchart on the screen, the natural language dialogue system starts communicating with novices to make sure they comprehend the solution of given problem with asking them to trace the generated flowchart. It

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also should be noted that the system should be able to extract more keywords while chatting with novices via dialogue-based tutoring system, and refer them back to domain-specific knowledge base and query expansion to find more hints. Example 2.“Write a program to find the largest among three numbers”. In this example, after the text processing and noise removal stage the output will be:Find/VB largest/JJS among/IN three/CD numbers/NNS.

In this example, once the tagged output words are entered, D2 recognizes ‘largest’ and extracts its synonyms such as ‘biggest’, ’max’, and ’maximum’ and passes these three to D1. This means that keyword searching is started again with the new words, for example ‘biggest’, ’max’, ’maximum’ and etc. By doing so, these three are extracted as keywords. Then they are passed to the second parser to be searched through the D1 knowledge base to extract more information for drawing a flowchart. Information extracted from the keywords is passed to representation module in order to plot the flowchart or sub-flowchart for novices.

Figure 3. Workspace provided by FPE along with generated flowchart and the full flowchart from the Internet.

The worst case scenario. In this type of problem, namely: “Write a program in c to accept sentence from user”, the system will go through following process in below:

Text processing including parsing the sentence, noise removal, and main words separation

Referring to domain-specific knowledge-base to extract keywords with cross-checking of words with each other

If no keyword is found, it would be passed to query expansion which affects verbs

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If no verb is recognized to be substituted or replaced by its synonyms in order to expand the query, the proper shapes would be assigned to the main verbs and the rest of the nouns are entered into the shape in order to build a proper flowchart.

After generating flowchart or sub-flowchart on the screen, the natural language dialogue system start communicating with novices to make sure they comprehend the solution of given problem with asking them to complete the final flowchart out of given guidance, sub-flowchart, as well as giving them some options to trace the generated flowchart. It also should be noted that the system should be able to extract more keywords while chatting with novices via dialogue-based tutoring system, and refer them back to domain-specific knowledge base and query expansion to find more hints. It is worth mentioning that an on-line chat with admin is designed for this mode to assure novices realize the final process of conversion and to assure their problem-solving and solution designing skills are improved as already targeted.Example 3.“Write a program that asks the user to type an integer and write _you win_ if the value is between 56 and 78”.

In this example, after the text processing and noise removal stage the output will be:

Asks/VBZ user/NN type/VB integer/NN write/VB _/VBG you/PRP win/VB _/NNS if/IN value/NN is/VBZ between/IN 56/CD 78/CD

In this example, ‘asks’ is assigned to a rectangle automatically as it is a process, ‘write’ is assigned to a parallelogram as it is a output, and finally ‘if’ is assigned to a diamond as it is a condition, the generated sub-flowchart by the system for example 3 is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Workspace provided by FPE along with the generated sub-flowchart Evaluation and participants.

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Evaluation and Participants. The current study participants comprise 50 first-year undergraduate students from the University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. They mostly had no prior experience and knowledge of programming. The study was conducted over two consecutive weeks and the study duration for each day was two, two-hour sessions. Our initial hypothesis was to use FPE to improve the problem solving skills of participants while reducing the syntactical burden inherent in most programming languages. In the first session, the participants were supposed to solve three given programming problems after a presentation of traditional instruction. In the second session, participants were introduced to FPE with a 30-minute lecture and then were asked to solve three given exercises using FPE. The programming problems selected for this study were simple and basic, and their complexity increased from one to another. They were basically extracted from the repository of final exam questions of the computer science and information technology faculty at UM. The participants were asked to solve 2 simple programming problems in order to be introduced to using FPE and a few programming concepts. Examples of special cases were provided for clarification. Evaluations were conducted in an informal setting by ten evaluators every two hours. The five approaches selected to evaluate FPE were: (1) Test the participants’ problem solving improvement while being exposed to FPE; 2) Observe the users’ engagement with FPE; (3) Observe the participants’ attitude toward the usability and efficacy of FPE by providing them with a questionnaire after being exposed to FPE; (4) Interview participants during and after exposure to FPE regarding usability and efficacy, and (5) Monitor the participants’ problem solving skills. Instruments and data collection. In evaluating FPE two key factors were considered. First, the usability of FPE was regarded as similar to any other software applications. Jacob Nielsen (2003) indicated that the usability of software applications is employed to assess how easy to use user interfaces are. Regarding FPE usability, the feedback gained from evaluation was categorized in five general areas, namely ease of use, error handling, enjoyment, reliability and website-related questions. Secondly, in order to prove whether FPE is educationally beneficial to novice programmers, system efficacy should be assessed which is the most important factor. Four instruments were applied in conducting this study to ensure more accurate results regarding FPE usability and efficacy were obtained. Questionnaires, observation and interviews were applied to collect feedback and assess the participants’ satisfaction with their learning experience using FPE. Moreover, problem solving monitoring was used to assess participants’ improvement in problem solving abilities. The first three data gathering techniques obtained mainly subjective data. However, the latter was used to gather objective data, or quantitative data, regarding the effect of FPE on improving the problem solving skills of novice programmers. Monitoring the task completion times and number of solved problems in each session were two methods used to gather data (Warnlulasooriya et al. 2007, Hearrington 2009).

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reSuLtS And dISCuSSIon This research is aimed to generate feedback regarding FPE usability, efficacy

and problem-solving ability. Table 1 and Figure 8 present the questionnaire data gathered from the study, mean, standard deviation, variance as well as the description and frequency of responses. In order to combine the results of the questionnaires using different scales, percentage terms are used to present the data. The questionnaire is divided into two groups: usability and efficacy.Table 1. Questionnaire Results.

no Study Aim evaluation Criteria mean Std.

deviation variance

1 usability This programming tool is enjoyable to use 3.9800 .55291 .306

2 usabilityThis programming tool is easy to use and

understand (I can learn how to use the tool within 5 minutes)

4.3600 .85141 .725

3 usability The tool performs its function in a correct and efficient manner 4.3800 .63535 .404

4 usability The tool is speedy and responsive 4.1000 .50508 .255

5 usability The use of color is beneficial (The design of this tool is attractive) 4.1400 .72871 .531

6 usability Launching the tool is easy 4.2800 .64015 .410

7 usability The user interface design is appropriate for an inexperienced user 4.1200 .84853 .720

8 usabilityThe animation helped me develop a

solution and understand how a program works

4.3600 .74942 .562

9 usability I enjoyed solving the programming problem using this tool 4.6400 .48487 .235

10 usability System chat and instant feedback are helpful 4.4400 .70450 .496

11 usability The error messages are helpful to provide guidance to correct my mistake 4.1400 .63920 .409

12 usability The programming problems given are at the right difficulty level for me 4.0200 .86873 .755

13 EfficacyThe automatic text-to-flowchart approach is helpful when I have no idea about the

solution4.2600 .98582 .972

14 Efficacy The flowchart visualization helped me when developing a solution 4.5400 .50346 .253

15 Efficacy I had few problems learning how to use the tool to develop my solution 3.0200 .79514 .632

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16 Efficacy The flowchart is useful for designing computer programs and sharing ideas 4.6000 .49487 .245

17 EfficacyI understand the relationship between

the flowchart and programming problem statement after using the tool

4.5400 .64555 .417

18 Efficacy The tool made the programming concept easier to understand 4.2600 .69429 .482

19 Efficacy I would recommend the tool to others who want to learn programming 4.5400 .50346 .253

20 Efficacy The tool enabled me to see a design solution 4.4400 .73290 .537

21 Efficacy The flowchart enabled me to understand the solution being developed 4.6000 .49487 .245

22 Efficacy I feel I have learnt some skills by using the tool and solving the problems 4.1600 .68094 .464

23 Efficacy The tool has positively influenced my interest in programming 3.9800 .95810 .918

24 Efficacy The tool helped me understand how to design a solution in programming 4.3000 .61445 .378

25 EfficacyThe tool helped me develop and improve

my solution designing and problem-solving skills

4.3000 .76265 .582

26 Efficacy The tool increased my understanding of computer programming 4.2800 .57286 .328

27 EfficacyThe tool as a whole and its features helped

me overcome conceptual difficulties in programming

4.3600 .69282 .480

28 Efficacy The tool enables me to focus and improve my problem solving skills 4.4400 .64397 .415

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Figure 8. Questionnaire data gathered from 50 participants.

Upon collecting the evaluation results, their reliability should be studied. Many methods have been applied by various researchers to measure reliability and we used Cronbach’s Alpha in this research. This method is normally used to measure internal consistency and the range is between 0 and 1. It is said that as long as α is close to 1, it is reliable (Cronbach 1951) but overall, this range should be higher than 0.7 to prove reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha measure for the usability and efficacy of questions shown in Table 2 are greater than 0.7, which indicates the high reliability level of this research and implies sufficient internal consistencies have been judged for a reliable measure.

Table 2. Reliability Statistics. factor Cronbach’s Alpha

Usability .947Efficacy .972

Generally, the data collected indicates the positivity of the research. Figure 9 illustrates the main results for the samples as a whole and individually for each factor, where bars show the average score assigned to each item.

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Figure 9. Results of students’ opinion about FPE.

The above diagram shows that participants liked learning with FPE and they thought that FPE helped them enjoy problem-solving and solution designing activities with ease of use. Other factors, such as web and online problem solving tasks, overall efficacy, flowchart, animation, and error handling were indicated highly positive by users. Most students reported high satisfaction with FPE. Table 3 provides additional details, the mean and standard deviation concerning various factors. Regarding the efficacy of FPE in improving problem-solving skills, which is considered the main goal of this research, the results indicate that the overall system efficacy in problem-solving and solution designing activities was 4.60. This signifies how successful FPE was in attaining the main aim of the research.

Table 3 Mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) for items about students’ opinion of FPE.Items usability Efficacy m SdEnjoyment * 3.9800 0.782Ease of use * 4.3600 0.765Reliability * 4.6400 0.870Website and Online Problem Solving Tasks * 4.0200 0.910Overall efficacy * 4.6000 1.028Flowchart * 4.6400 1.037Animation * 3.7600 0.980Error handling * 4.3000 1.030

Analysis of the problems solving. In this section, problem solving activities along with their efficacy are assessed. As indicated in previous sections, in order to monitor participants’ problem solving activities, the improvement in the completion time of 10 participants (Table 4), and the number of problems solved in each session by 32 participants (Figure 10) were monitored and assessed. Once the learning difficulties were tackled, the completion time decreased even though problem

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complexity increased. Regarding the number of problems solved per session, by using the system the majority of participants were at least able to solve one or two of the given programming problems. This shows the effectiveness of FPE in problem solving activities. A few participants were unable to solve problems before using FPE, but by using FPE their problem solving abilities enhanced and they solved at least one problem per session. In general, the feedback and results collected from problem solving monitoring indicate that the participants found FPE very effective and enjoyable. It should also be mentioned that some participants responded with a low positive. The time limitation made some of the participants spend less time familiarizing with FPE. Other factors affecting the evaluation results were age and gender, which should be investigated further.

In spite of the fact that the problems grew in complexity from one to the next, the time completion rate results shown in Table 4 demonstrate a decline in completion time with each successive problem. During problem solving monitoring, there were four evaluators who were not able to complete problems a2 and a3. However, by using FPE not only could they tackle this issue, but the time decrement in completion time for problems b2 and b3 was a real surprise. This shows that FPE and the problem solving activities had a very positive impact on the problem solving skills of most evaluators.

Figure 10. Average number of problems completed per session.

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Table 4. Time completion rates of 10 participants in two different sessions.participant

noproblem

a1problem

a2problem

a3problem

b1problem

b2problem

b31 2:45 min 2:20 min 3:00 min 2:40 min 2:10 min 3:00 min

2 3:10 min 3:00 min 1:55 min 2:10 min 2:45 min

3 1:50 min 2:30 min 2:40 min 1:55 min 2:50 min 2:30 min


5 4:00 min 2:30 min 2:40 min 2:30 min




9 2:00 min 3:10 min 1:20 min 1:55 min 1:55 min


Max 4:00 min 3:10 min 3:00 min 2:40 min 2:50 min 3:00 min

Min 1:50 min 1:50 min 2:00 min 1:10 min 1:30 min 1:40 min

Avg. Time 2:27 min 2:32 min 2:38 min 1:55 min 2:07 min 2:18 min

No 10 9 7 10 10 10

ConCLuSIon And future workAt present, in an attempt to introduce novices to programming and also

for introductory programming developments, iconic based environments and flowchart-based notation are largely used to enhance their logical and critical thinking skills (Barzegar et al. 2010). More research in this field has revealed that the lack of problem-solving skills is exacerbated by language syntax that the novices employ. This might result in giving up trying and losing interest, which can lead to dropping out and higher failure rates. Thus, our proposed novel text-to-flowchart conversion approach intends to simulate human mechanism of solving a programming problem, stated in English, prompting novices to focus on solution rather than on programming syntax by engaging them in meaningful planning activities and solution designing so as to improve their problem solving skills. Two knowledge base systems are applied to draw the corresponding flowchart as well as a dialogue-based tutoring system, which gets novices involved in a dialogue and ask them to complete the corresponding flowchart or tracing the finalized flowchart with the aim of improving solution designing and problem solving skills. A Web crawler is designed to automatically search the Internet for the new and unknown programming problems entered by users and add the relevant extracted information from the Internet to D1 knowledge base. The proposed approach applied in FPE is an advance and improvement over many existing visual programming environments. An E-learning environment that visualizes the solution construction for a programming problem by automatically converting the given problem statement to its relevant flowchart while engaging users in flowchart development, will provide

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novices with an accurate mental model of execution. Thus, the main aim of this study is to support the problem-solving ability through designing activities. We believe FPE was very successful because the criteria were designed carefully. The system benefits from a mature repository of basic and fundamental programming problems aimed at novice programmers along with a novel approach of automatic text-to-flowchart conversion, which enables FPE to get novices involved in flowchart development. There are not many developed visualization tools intended for students with no prior knowledge of programming. Besides our system, a few others have been developed, such as SICAS (Gomes & Mendes 2000) and RAPTOR (Carlisle et al. 2005). They are similar to FPE in a sense that they provide students with an environment for flowchart construction and visualization. However, the novel approach applied in FPE distinguishes it from other related works. Novice programmers who do not know anything about programming are sometimes unable to use the aforementioned tools as they require some sort of user knowledge regarding the entered programming problems. FPE resolves this inconvenience using a web-based environment to get users involved in flowchart development of the entered programming problem. It is worth mentioning that even the worst case scenarios are improvised in our proposed system in order to fully assist users, even in terms of problems that are not stored in the main system repository. Additionally, FPE automatically improves its repository using an extra database to store the unknown entered programming problems along with web crawlers to enhance its main database. FPE received very positive feedback from 50 first-year undergraduate students taking their first introductory courses in programming, “Programming 1” at University of Malaya. Various evaluation methods showed that FPE could improve the participants’ problem solving skills. The main contribution of this work is a novel flowchart-based programming environment benefiting from an automatic text-to-flowchart conversion approach for improving problem-solving skills of novice programmers in a form of solution designing activities. FPE can be utilized in many academic applications namely in problem solving, drawing diagrams, and etc. as well as to make teaching programming subjects a more appealing option for instructors. Consequently, the results suggested future, further development of a text-to-flowchart conversion approach in the form of a Multi-Agent System (MAS) in order to make the early stages of learning programming more encouraging for students.

ACknowLedgmentSThis work is financially supported by the Postgraduate Research Grant (PPP) of

University of Malaya under the Project PG072-2014 A.

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ASIA LIFE SCIENCES 24(2): 865-868, 2015The Asian International Journal of Life Sciences

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REVIEWERS - ASIA LIFE SCIENCES Volume 24, Number 2 (July-December) 2015*

Dr. Nelly S. AgganganScientistNational Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BOTECH)University of the Philippines Los BañosCollege 4031, Laguna, Philippines

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Dr. Yung-Cheol ByunProfessor/Ph.D.Department of Computer Engineering Jeju National University102 Jejudaehak-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Korea, 690-756

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Dr. Xiangyu LiuResearch ScientistInstitute for Cancer GeneticsColumbia University1130 St. Nicholas Avenue, New YorkNY 10032, USA

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Dr. Olga M. Nuñeza, Ph.D.Professor, Department of Biological SciencesMindanao State University-Iligan Institute of TechnologyTibanga, Iligan City 9200Philippines

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Actual Date of Publication: Asia Life Sciences Volume 24,

Number 2 (July-December) 2015 - 30 March 2015.


ISSN 0117-3375Volume 24, Number 2 July-December 2015

CONTENTS469 A new distribution record of Hoya espaldoniana

Kloppenburg, Siar & Cajano (Section Acanthostemma: Apocynaceae) A.S. Hadsall, M.A.O. Cajano, I.A.F. Lambio & M. Alejado

477 Relationship between above- and below-ground biomass for 18-year-old Abies holophylla under different stand conditions H.-H. Lee & D.-H. Lee

493 The Philippine genus Stilbotes Stal and a new tribe of Asopinae (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) V.P. Gapud

499 Competitive ability of weedy rice against cultivated rice in the Philippines E.C.Martin & I.R. Tanzo

507 Formulation of an environment and social impact assessment tool for small scale economic activities in coastal areas in the Philippines C.A. Cabrido, Jr.

537 Morphological variations of the white goby (Glossogo-bius giuris Hamilton 1822, Teleostei: Gobiidae) in three lakes of Southern Luzon, Philippines J.G. Campang & P.P. Ocampo

Cont. Inside Back Cover

Reviewers for this Issue: Dr. Nelly S. Aggangan, Prof. J.V. Bariuan, Prof. A.R. Buan, Dr. Y.-C. Byun, Dr. L.A. Corpuz-Raros, Dr. V.P. Gapud, Dr. K.G. Gruèzo, Dr. Wm.Sm. Gruèzo, Dr. Y. Janous, Dr. R.L. Lapitan, Dr. X. Liu, Dr. J. Ma, Prof. M. Mallari-Cuerdo, Prof. J.A. Margate, Prof. A.P. Mercado, Prof. R.N. Monte, Prof. O. Motlagh, Dr. O.M. Nuñeza, Prof. R.R.Saplaco, Dr.M.Shojafar, Dr. R. Wang & Dr. D. Zhang.

©Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2015 Printed in the Philippines

Contents 559 Guideposts in land use planning and allocation in the

Philippines C.A. Cabrido, Jr. & M.L.T. Munarriz

575 Enhancement of growth and yield of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) by actinomycetes J.A. Cruz, E.F. Delfin & E.S. Paterno

585 Using Surestream and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) networks to construct ubiquitous learning environment K.-T. Sun & H.-T. Chan

601 Nature farming and himalayanisation: Food subsistence strategies by the Mangyan Alangan Tribe of Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines A.M.Caringal & J.A.D. Guarde

629 A flowchart-based programming environment for improving problem solving skills of Cs minors in computer programming D. Hooshyar, R.B. Ahmad, S. Shamshirband, M. Yousefi & S.-J. Horng

647 Body image, body mass index and the experience of Hiya in physical education among Filipino female university students Z.R.T. Brebante & J.Y. Cagas

661 Strategic global sourcing: Procurement decision concepts in the aviation manufacturing industry C. Kowalski & M. Fiedler

679 Outdoor activities: Source of healthy living and cultural legacy R.N. Monte, A.R. Buan & J.S. Dela Cruz

689 Effects of microhabitat factors on the distribution of black shama (Copsychus cebuensis Steere) in Argao Watershed Reserve, Cebu, Philippines A.B.B. Malaki

Contents703 Comparison of exercise versus sport participation motives among Filipino university students J.Y. Cagas, E.J. Manalastas, B. Torre & C. Sanchez-Pituk715 Grain-filling process in lowland rice (Oryza sativa L.

‘PSB Rc18’) under water deficit is enhanced by nitrogen fertilization B.U. Tizon-Salazar, P.C. Sta. Cruz, B.M. Salazar, E.A. Aguilar & R.B. Badayos

727 Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) phosphorylates BimEL Ser69 via ERK1/2 pathway Y. Sun, Y. Mao, S. Gu & Y. Xie737 Stressors and stress responses of Filipino college students M.R. Dy, K. Espiritu-Santo, M.P. Ferido & R.D. Sanchez761 Mangamaru: A creative indigenous Kapampangan folkdance (Philippines) M.E. Santos, J.G. Tubera & J.T. Martin 777 Termiticidal activity of wild mushroom species (Agaricus and Hebeloma) C.T. Navalta & T.A. Estrabo789 Family correlates of adolescent volunteerism B.A. Lalap & M.R. Dy809 Characterization and analysis of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) karyotypes O.A. Hagelamin &

A.M.M. Alzahrani823 Strategic logistics planning for flood disaster prevention of economic zones in the Greater Manila Area, Philippines J.T. Castro 841 Determinants of employee’s acceptance of a compressed workweek scheme: A case study

M.B. Sundo, S. Fujii, M.S. Madlangbayan, E.V. Ana & P.P. Velasco

Contents857 Enhancing learning performance using grouping optimization based on social relationships and genetic algorithm C.-Y. Chang, C.-T. Chen, M.-H. Chen, R.-C. Chen & S.-P. Suen865 Reviewers -Asia Life Sciences Volume 24, No. 2, 2015869 Board of Editors -Asia Life Sciences Volume 24, No.2, 2015

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Actual Date of Publication: Asia Life Sciences Volume24, Number 2 (July-December) 2015 - 30 March 2015.

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