Analysis of the emotions experienced by learning greedy algorithms with augmented reality

Students have difficulties in understanding algorithm subjects, in particular how the source code of algorithms proceeds to solve problems. This article presents an augmented reality tool intended to assist in learning greedy algorithms. Students use their smartphone's camera to focus the source code of Dijkstra's algorithm as written on paper, and the tool shows how the algorithm works. An experience was conducted in the classroom to assess students' emotions and knowledge level. The results show that positive emotions experienced by students were almost twice as intense as negative ones. Despite the complexity of the task (i.e. understanding Dijkstra's algorithm), the level of enjoyment of students was continuous during the experience. However, the anxiety experienced by students was the double than at the beginning.