Interfacing Complexitor: An Empirical-based Educational Tool for Learning Time Complexity

Since learning algorithm time complexity in theoretical manner is rather difficult, an educational tool, which is named Complexitor, tried to incorporate empirical approach for teaching such material. Students can learn how to determine a time complexity for given algorithm based on the actual execution. Students are only required to provide algorithm implementation and input set. This paper extends the work of Complexitor by providing a stable interface and qualitative evaluation. The interface is developed based on input and output characteristic of Complexitor whereas the evaluation is represented as a survey toward 20 undergraduate students. Based on student’s perspective, Complexitor features, at some extent, may help students to learn algorithm time complexity. Moreover, they also state that our tool has fulfilled standard application aspects. In other words, our tool is eligible to be used for learning algorithm time complexity.