The instructional design approach puts focus on the syntactic level of TSSL, to explain how visualizing gradual transitions between hierarchic levels of the schema is effective in database modeling. The current work demonstrates the approach, and at the next phase we plan to experimentally test the effectiveness of the approach by comparing performance and attitudes of students who are exposed to emphasizing the syntax of the gradual transitions in schema structure to those who are not exposed to it. | Journal of Technology and Science Education JOTSE, 2018 – 8(4): 238-253 – Online ISSN: 2013-6374 – Print ISSN: 2014-5349 APPLYING TSSL IN DATABASE SCHEMA MODELING: VISUALIZING THE SYNTAX OF GRADUAL TRANSITIONS Adi Katz Sami Shamoon College of Engineering (SCE) (Israel) adis@ Received December 2017 Accepted February 2018 Abstract Since database conceptual modeling is a complex cognitive activity, finding an appropriate pedagogy to deliver the topic to novice database designers is a challenge for Information Systems (IS) educators. The four-level TSSL model that is known in the area of human-computer interactions (HCI) is used to explain and demonstrate how instructional design can minimize extraneous cognitive load in the conceptual modeling task of designing a database schema. The instructional design approach puts focus on the syntactic level of TSSL, to explain how visualizing gradual transitions between hierarchic levels of the schema is effective in database modeling. The current work demonstrates the approach, and at the next phase we plan to experimentally test the effectiveness of the approach by comparing performance and attitudes of students who are exposed to emphasizing the syntax of the gradual transitions in schema structure to those who are not exposed to it. Keywords – Conceptual modeling, Database schema, TSSL, Pedagogy, Visualization. ---------- 1. Introduction This is a pedagogic research that offers an approach for effectively delivering and instructing the activity of relational database schema modeling to novice database designers. Modeling users’ requirements is a very important task in information system analysis and design, to ensure that the intended system would meet organizational goals (Dahan, Shoval & Sturm, 2014). The purpose of data modeling is to correctly capture users’ reality. The activity of modeling involves the creation of relations, attributes, and indicating relationships .
