AFRICAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

This study investigates the role of data structures as a fundamental organising factor in the design of software and algorithms, with particular emphasis on their influence on computational efficiency, scalability, and system performance. Grounded in algorithmic complexity theory and data abstraction principles, the research adopts a computational experimental methodology that integrates theoretical analysis with empirical benchmarking. Specifically, commonly used data structures—arrays, linked lists, binary search trees, and hash tables were implemented and evaluated across core operations such as searching, insertion, deletion, and traversal under varying dataset sizes and workload conditions . The analytical framework combined Big-O complexity evaluation with real- time performance metrics, including execution time and memory utilisation, using programming environments such as Python and C++. The results reveal that data structure selection has a significant and measurable impact on algorithm efficiency. Hash tables consistently demonstrated superior performance in search operations with near- constant time complexity, while linked lists exhibited optimal efficiency in insertion and deletion tasks. Arrays, although simple in structure, showed notable performance degradation under large datasets due to linear time complexity, whereas binary search trees provided balanced performance contingent on structural conditions. Furthermore, performance disparities became more pronounced as computational workloads increased, highlighting the critical role of scalability in data structure selection. The study concludes that no single data structure is universally optimal; rather, performance is context-dependent and closely aligned with operational requirements and workload characteristics. Consequently, it is recommended that software developers adopt a context-sensitive and evidence-based approach to data structure selection, incorporating both theoretical complexity analysis and empirical testing. This approach is essential for developing efficient, scalable, and high-performance software systems.