Analyzing the Cognitive Difficulties for Developing and Using UML Class Diagrams for Domain Understanding

Developing and using conceptual models require modelers' cognitive efforts. To identify and analyze the cognitive difficulties of modelers in developing and using conceptual models, two laboratory studies were conducted using UML class diagram as a conceptual modeling technique. In the first study, two groups of modelers were trained to develop UML class diagrams, with only one group being trained to develop the diagrams using ontological rules. All these diagrams were then provided to a different set of modelers who used them to answer domain understanding tasks. It was found that modelers who used the ontological rules had less difficulty in developing the diagrams than those who didn't. Similarly, modelers who used the diagrams developed by the group trained with rules had less difficulty in performing problem solving tasks than the modelers who used the diagrams developed by the group without training. It was observed that the cognitive difficulties of the modelers of the first study were transferred to the modelers in the second study.