Systematic Exploration of Informatics Systems

Our research is part of a broader research study towards an education model for understanding of informatics systems at upper secondary level. There are three characteristics specific to informatics systems: their observable behaviour, their internal structure, and implementation aspects. Informatics systems represent networked fundamental ideas of informatics. Thus, networking these concepts within a mental model is essential to understand informatics systems. Observation exercises and systematic exploration have been identified as a means to overcome the cognitive barrier build by complex informatics systems. Analysis of international curricula and recommendations has shown a lack of strategies to understand the behaviour of informatics systems based on informatics concepts. Thus, we created a sequence of steps to explore an informatics system systematically. Main objective was to make students cope with informatics systems in a conscious way. Hypotheses about intended behaviour of the system avoid trial-and-error approaches. We decided to substantiate the systematic exploration with learning theory on problem orientation, educational experiments, and inclusion of different cognitive processes. The steps of the systematic exploration are: 1. Answer questions about the intended behaviour of a given informatics system (remember; factual knowledge), 2. Outline the procedure for conducting the experiment (understanding; procedural), 3. Document the data observed (apply; factual knowledge), 4. Examine data and identify informatics concepts, e.g., access control (analyze; conceptual knowledge), 5. Establish a set of special cases to be tested and evaluate them (evaluate; conceptual knowledge), 6. Create a series of hypotheses for using the informatics system in a real-world or more complex scenario (create; factual knowledge).