Facilitating Learning by Practice and Examples: a Tool for Learning Table Normalization

Abstract

We describe the design and evaluation of a web-based tool to help students learn database normalization, which is an important topic in relational database design. Compared with existing systems, our tool has the advantage of allowing a user to practice with as many examples as he/she likes, at all possible levels of difficulty, showing the detailed steps for each solution, and allowing users to upload existing examples and saving their own examples for later reference. Our user survey and observation indicate that the tool is well liked by those who used it, and the tool has impacted them positively in their learning.