On two collateral effects of using algorithm visualizations

A number of researchers conducted a study to demonstrate collateral effects of using algorithm visualizations (AV). An experiment was performed to evaluate the difference in efficacy of using AVs in individual and collaborative learning situations. Some students of the first year of an undergraduate program in computer science were asked to participate in an experiment oriented towards validating the following hypothesis at the end of a course on algorithms and data structures. The rational behind this hypothesis was The rational behind this hypothesis compensated by the collaboration between students, while this was not true in the case of individual learning. The first result was that the students who had access to AVs independently of the learning environment, performed worse than the other students while dealing with theoretical questions concerning the visualized algorithm.