Code to learn with Scratch? A systematic literature review

Abstract

The use of computer programming in K-12 spread into schools worldwide in the 70s and 80s of the last century, but it disappeared from the educational landscape in the early 90s. With the development of visual programming languages such as Scratch, this movement has emerged again in recent years, as teachers at all educational levels and from different disciplines consider that the use of programming enhances learning in many subjects and allows students to develop important skills. The systematic literature review presented in this article aims to summarize the results of recent research using programming with Scratch in subjects not related to computing and communications, as well as studies analyzing the kind of skills students develop while learning to code in this environment. Although the analyzed papers provide promising results regarding the use of programming as an educational resource, this review highlights the need to conduct more empirical research in classrooms, using larger samples of students that allow to obtain clear conclusions about the types of learning that could be enhanced through programming.

Full text

Code to learn with Scratch?
A systematic literature review
Jesús Moreno-León
Programamos.es
Sevilla, Spain
jesus.moreno@programamos.es
Gregorio Robles
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Madrid, Spain
grex@gsyc.urjc.es
Abstract— The use of computer programming in K-12 spread
into schools worldwide in the 70s and 80s of the last century, but
it disappeared from the educational landscape in the early 90s.
With the development of visual programming languages such as
Scratch, this movement has emerged again in recent years, as
teachers at all educational levels and from different disciplines
consider that the use of programming enhances learning in many
subjects and allows students to develop important skills. The
systematic literature review presented in this article aims to
summarize the results of recent research using programming
with Scratch in subjects not related to computing and
communications, as well as studies analyzing the kind of skills
students develop while learning to code in this environment.
Although the analyzed papers provide promising results
regarding the use of programming as an educational resource,
this review highlights the need to conduct more empirical
research in classrooms, using larger samples of students that
allow to obtain clear conclusions about the types of learning that
could be enhanced through programming.
Keywords—Computational thinking, Scratch; Systematic
Literature Review, Learning;
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years we are witnessing a movement that seeks to
promote teaching of programming in schools worldwide. In
America this movement is led by Code.org, a nonprofit
foundation devoted to expand participation in computing; even
the U.S. president cooperates with the initiative encouraging
young people to learn to code1. In Europe, the vice president
of the European Commission sent a few months ago a letter to
the European Ministers of Education urging them to promote
the inclusion of programming in schools in order to alleviate
the problem of youth unemployment in the continent2. In both
cases, this movement is primarily focused on the lack of IT
professionals that exists today and is expected to be increased
in the coming years.
In addition, some scholars from the educational and the
scientific community have shown interest in the benefits that a
child can acquire by learning to code regardless of the field of
his/her future professional activity. In this scenario, coding is
not as an end in itself but a tool to develop other skills and to
improve learning outcomes and motivation of students.
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Mitchel Resnick, the director of MediaLab and creator of
Scratch, explains the differences between the approaches of
both proposals in his article ``Learn to code, code to learn”
[1].
This approach is not new, Seymour Papert, among others,
created already in the 70s the Logo programming language to
allow children to use computers to create games, composing
music or painting recursive drawings [2]. However, even
though in the 80s many schools taught students how to
program, programming disappeared from the educational
landscape in the 90s in part, as authors like Kafai and Burke
point out [3], because programming was not integrated with
other subjects of the curriculum, beyond mathematics and
physics. Resnick himself, in his article Reviving Papert’s
Dream [4], explains that the lack of interest in programming
was also due, firstly, to the problems that students and
teachers faced trying to learn the language syntax and,
moreover, because the activities used in the classrooms did not
match the interest of students.
In recent years new programming languages have been
designed to be visually programmed without the need to learn
the syntax, as it is the case with traditional languages.
Languages like Alice, Kodu and especially Scratch, have
reawakened the interest of the educational community in
programming. Moreover, the Scratch team learned from the
previous experiences to develop a language that permits the
creation of many different types of projects, so that learners
with different interests and learning styles can find ways to
express themselves through programming [5].
Thus, since the release of Scratch in 2007, new initiatives
around the world have been raised to teach programming to
children and youngsters. In addition to extracurricular
activities [6] and summer camps [7], teachers from all
educational levels, both in schools [8], high schools [9] and
even universities [10], have begun to introduce programming
in their classes. Activities to learn different disciplines, such as
mathematics, science, arts, music or languages, as evidenced
by thousands of resources in over 10 languages generated by
educators are shared in the ScratchEd website3.
Nevertheless, if there is no evidence showing educational
impact of programming, it is possible that this resurgence of
programming in schools disappears in a few years, as it
already happened in the 90s. The essential question that we try
to answer in this paper is therefore whether computer
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programming, when used as an educational resource, can
improve the learning of subjects not related with information
and communications technology (ICT). To answer this
question we have performed a systematic literature review to
identify if evidence exists on educational benefits of
programming in K-12, summarizing the most important
empirical findings in order to suggest lines for future research.
This study focuses on the use of Scratch, since it is the most
used visual programming language, with over 8 million users4,
and there are studies that argue that depending on the
programming language different skills sets are developed [11,
12].
The paper is structured as follows: in Section 2 findings of
other literature reviews related to the topic discussed in this
paper are summarized; Section 3 explains the procedure we
have followed for conducting the literature review,
determining the questions that have guided the work, the
searches we have performed and the selection and exclusion
criteria we have used; Section 4 presents the results of the
review, summarizing the conclusions and findings of the
papers selected for revision. Finally, Section 5 includes the
conclusions of our study.
II. BACKGROUND
Prior to this study we searched for other systematic
literature reviews on the educational use of programming.
Although we could not find studies with the same goals, we
discovered some reviews with similarities that have served as
a starting point and inspiration.
Grover and Pea [13] explain in their literature review on
Computational Thinking in K-12 that although the idea of
programming as a means to teach other subjects was studied in
the 80s and 90s with the Logo programming language and its
potential was demonstrated, it should be re-investigated using
new visual programming languages. Lye and Koh [14], in
their literature review on learning Computational Thinking
through programming, analyzed 9 papers in which coding was
incorporated into the K-12 curriculum in subjects such as
mathematics and English, and identify the need to carry out
more research in schools. Finally, Benitti [15] conducted a
systematic literature review to explore the educational
potential of robotics in K-12 which, after analyzing 10 papers,
concludes that empirical evidence to defend the educational
effectiveness of using robotics is still limited.
Finally, beyond the scientific literature, it should be noted
the existence of the ScratchEd website, a portal maintained by
the Harvard Graduate School of Education. ScratchEd is a
repository of educational resources provided by teachers from
different countries and educational levels that share materials
to work on a variety of subjects through programming with
Scratch, such as arts, mathematics, music, science or social
studies, among others.
III. METHODOLOGY
To implement this review, we followed the procedure
depicted in ``Guidelines for performing systematic literature
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re- views in software engineering” [16], where a systematic
literature review is described as ``a means of evaluating and
interpreting all available research relevant to a particular
research question, topic area, or phenomenon of interest, using
a trustworthy, rigorous, and auditable methodology”.
A systematic literature review involves three general
phases [17]: planning the review, conducting the review and
documenting the review, each of which includes several
activities, as Fig. 1 illustrates. This section describes the main
decisions we took in each of these phases.
Firstly, this review was guided by the following research
questions:
1. What K-12 subjects have used programming with
Scratch as an educational resource?
2. Is programming with Scratch a good educational tool
that enhances student learning?
3. What other skills are developed while learning to
code with Scratch?
From these questions, the following search string was pre-
pared:
(teach OR teaching OR learn OR learning OR education
OR educational) AND (code OR coding OR program OR
programming) AND (Scratch) AND (school OR k-12)
This string was executed during the month of January 2015
in international online databases, such as IEEE XPLORE,
ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, ERIC or
Wilson Education, and in tools like SCOPUS and Google
Scholar, restricting the search to peer-reviewed papers, writ-
ten in English and published since 2007, the release date of
Scratch.
After performing these searches, 107 articles were found,
which were analyzed to determine whether they would be
finally included in the review. In order to decide which papers
to include, the following exclusion criteria were used:
Fig. 1: Systematic literature review process [17]

1. Papers exclusively focused on computer science
knowledge, or development of computational
thinking or programming skills of the students who
participated in the study.
2. Conceptual articles or studies that do not provide
evidence of educational benefits.
3. Studies aimed at university students, outside the
scope of K-12.
4. Papers using other technologies such as robotics, or
articles that dealt with topics outside this context.
5. Articles whose abstract is written in English but the
rest of the paper is in another language.
6. Articles that could not be accessed.
Table I shows the number of papers excluded due to each
of these reasons. As can be seen, a significant percentage of
the excluded papers, about 40%, were considered out of
context, as they address issues such as robotics, programming
with other tools like AppInventor or Logo, or they only
describe the goals of Scratch or how Scratch works. 30% of
the articles that have not been included in our review use
Scratch in the K-12 environment, but they only study aspects
related to programming, where coding is not integrated into
the curriculum of other subjects different than computer
science or ICT. Moreover, 7 of the excluded papers are not
focused on the K-12 environment, as research is carried out
with college students. We also excluded 7 papers that, even
though focused on the educational benefits of programming in
schools, do not provide evidence of those benefits, being
conceptual papers. Two articles could not be included as only
the abstract is written in English. Finally, three articles could
not be accessed (we even asked the authors to send us a copy,
without success).
Therefore, for this literature review we count with a final
number 15 articles, in line with (actually, a little above) the
number of papers studied in the systematic literature reviews
referred in Section II [13, 14, 15].
IV. FINDINGS
In this section we summarize the findings of the papers
selected for this review with regard to the research questions
of the paper.
TABLE I. SUMMARY OF ARTICLE EXCLUSION
Motive of exclusion
Number of articles
Focused on programming
32
No evidence provided
7
University students
7
Out of context
41
No English version
2
Articles not accessed
3
A. What K-12 subjects have used programming with Scratch
as an educational resource?
It is possible to find studies in the scientific literature that
describe how different subjects could be worked by
developing various types of applications with Scratch. By
raising just a couple of examples, Calder et al. describe how
students use “geometric coordinates and concepts such as
angle and length measurements” to program their games [18];
Sanjanaashree et al. illustrate how to use coding with Scratch
“to learn single sentence construction of secondary language
(English) through primary language (Tamil)” [19]. And
similarly, it is also possible to find articles in which, after an
experience that brings the world of programming to teachers,
discover and visualize the educational potential that
programming could have on their subjects, such as arts and
music [20].
However, with this review we aimed to summarize the
scientific literature in which, in addition to using programming
with Scratch to learn subjects other than ICT, the educational
impact of using this resource is measured in some way and
presents some kind of evidence to draw conclusions regarding
the usefulness of programming in K-12. So, of the 15 papers
selected for revision, 8 of them use programming as a tool to
learn some school subject different than ICT.
Table II summarizes the topic dealt in each of the papers.
It includes a reference to each article, the grade or age of the
participating students, the subject or area in which
programming was used and the environment in which the
research was conducted. As can be seen, there are articles that
study the impact of programming in STEM subjects like
Mathematics [21, 22, 23] or Science [24, 25], but also in other
contexts such as Arts [22], Writing [26, 27] or English as a
second language [28]. There also is a considerable diversity
regarding the age (or grade) in which the studies are held,
ranging from 8 to 18 years. Finally, most of the studies, 6 out
of 8, were conducted within a school environment and
therefore integrating programming within the curriculum and
the dynamics of schools; only 2 investigations were developed
as extracurricular activities.
TABLE II. SUBJECTS LEARNED THROUGH CODING WITH SCRATCH
Paper
Age
Subject
Environment
[21]
Middle School
Mathematics
School
[22]
5th grade
Mathematics, English-
Language Arts
Summer camp
[23]
3rd grade
Mathematics
School
[24]
5th grade
Science
School
[25]
5th grade
Science
School
[26]
10-14 years old
Storytelling, Creative
writing
After school
[27]
12-14 years old
Writing
School
[28]
4th-5th grade
English as a second
language
School

TABLE III. CODING WITH SCRATCH TO IMPROVE OTHER SUBJECTS
Paper
Description
Duration
Sample
Control
Group
Participants
selection
Data
Recollection
Proved results
Non-proved results
[21]
Computer game design
to foster mathematical
thinking
6 weeks
64
middle
schoolers
No
Random
In-field
observation,
interviewing,
pre and post
mathematics
attitudes survey
Significantly more
positive attitudes
towards mathematics
after game making
[22]
Programming course
to detect correlations
between coding skills
and mathematics and
arts grades
12 days,
36 hours
47 fifth
graders
No
Volunteers
Standardized
Test Scores,
Programming
Quizzes
Test scores in
mathematics were highly
correlated with
performance on the
programming quizzes
Could not reject the null
hypothesis that students’
scores on the English-
Language Arts were not
correlated with their
performance on coding
quizzes
[23]
Game design to
identify and construct
numerical sequences
within Scratch
2 weeks
49 third
graders
Yes
Tests
Improvements at
identifying-comparing
numbers and establishing
order
No differences at spatial
location
[24]
Programming
computer games with
Scratch about
environmental science
21 days
10 fifth
graders
No
Students’
archived games,
transcripts of
pre and post
interviews,
observations
and field notes,
and journal
entries
How or if learners
deepened their science
knowledge
[25]
Effectiveness of using
Scratch programming
in science learning
15 weeks
96 fifth
graders
No
Study
questionnaire
61.5% reported they had
a better understanding of
science content
[26]
How writing computer
programs can help
children develop their
storytelling and
creative writing
abilities
6 weeks
11
students,
10-14
years old
No
Volunteers
Surveys
60% indicated they felt
their storytelling abilities
were improved
[27]
Study overlap between
programming and
writing through the
storytelling
7 weeks
10
students,
12-14
years old
No
Volunteers
Field
observation,
video recording,
artifact analysis,
and interviews
Scratch is an effective
framework for
facilitating middle
school children’s digital
composition
[28]
Measure to what
extent the use of
computer
programming in
English classes can be
an interesting
educational tool with a
positive impact on the
learning outcome of
the students
1 month
65
Yes
School groups
Pre and post
tests, surveys
Groups working with
programming activities
improved more than the
groups using traditional
resources. Most students
felt that coding was a
positive influence for
learning English
B. Is programming with Scratch a good educational tool that
enhances student learning?
Table III shows a summary of the articles selected for this
review. For each article the table includes following
information: paper reference, a general description of the
study, study duration, sample characteristics in relation to their
size and age, use or not of a control group, method to select
participants, methods for collecting data and evidence, results
that were proved by research, and results that could not be
proved with the study.
Analyzing the selected papers, as can be seen in table III, only
two studies [23, 28] use a control group to compare the results
obtained by the experimental group, and only in one of the

articles participants have been selected randomly [21].
Moreover, the sample sizes are very small, since in all cases
the number of participants was lower than 100. Taking into
consideration the methods used for collecting evidence, four
of the articles [22, 23, 26, 25] only take data once the
intervention is completed, three studies [21, 24, 28] make one
prior collection and another afterwards, and one research [27],
collects evidence, besides the final data, during the study.
Finally, focusing on the instruments used for data
collection, only three of the papers [22, 23, 28] use tests to
assess the knowledge acquired by the participating students,
while two articles were limited to use surveys [26, 25]. Three
studies [21, 24, 27] make use of some sort of in-field
observation, interviews and products analysis.
Taking into account the recommendations that Cohen,
Manion and Morrison outline in their book ``Research
Methods in Education”, the summary presented in this review
suggests, therefore, that it is necessary to develop more studies
providing quantitative data obtained in experiments in which
both a control group and an experimental group of students
with similar characteristics are used, where the group
assignments are randomly performed and data collection
includes pre and post tests [29].
Nevertheless, the results of the literature under study show
a very promising educational potential for programming with
Scratch in order to enhance learning in other subjects that are
not related to ICT. In relation to mathematics, Ke [21] points
out that participants in his research showed a significantly
more positive attitude towards this discipline after having
developed games with Scratch, Lewis and Shah show the
correlation between programming quizzes and math tests
grades [22], and Zavala, Gallardo and Garcia-Ruiz detect
improvements in the identification and comparison of
numbers, as well as the establishment of order between
numbers, although no improvements in relation to the spatial
location were observed [23]. Regarding science, Lai and Lai
affirm that more than 60% of study participants indicated that
after having made games with Scratch that dealt with contents
of the science class, they had a better understanding of the
concepts of the subject [25]; however, Baytak and Land did
not prove whether students in their work acquired greater
knowledge of science, although the authors recognize that the
objectives of their research was more exploratory than
conclusive [24]. In relation to writing and storytelling, Burke
and Kafai show that 60% of the participants in their study
indicated that their storytelling skills had improved [26], while
Burke affirms that programming with Scratch is a framework
that facilitates storytelling and digital composition of students
in middle school [27]. Regarding English-Language Arts,
Lewis and Shah could not reject the null hypothesis that
students’ scores on the English- Language Arts were not
correlated with their performance on coding quizzes [22].
Finally, Moreno-León and Robles report that groups working
with programming activities improved more than groups using
traditional resources, and that most students felt that coding
was a positive influence for learning English [28].
C. What other skills are developed while learning to code
with Scratch?
The creators of Scratch argue that when children learn to
program with this tool, “in addition to learning mathematical
and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals),
they are also learning strategies for solving problems,
designing projects, and communicating ideas.” [1], so they
develop “design strategies (such as modularization and
iterative design) that carry over to non-programming domains”
[5]. Therefore one of the objectives of this review is to try to
discover whether there are scientific studies that underpin
these claims.
Table IV collects the synthesis of the conclusions of the
papers selected for this review. In relation to the types of
investigations, and taking again into account the
recommendations of Cohen, Manion and Morrison on the
methods to conduct research in education [29], 4 out of 7
analyzed papers use a control group to compare the results of
the experimental group, and 6 of the 7 articles use pre and post
tests to collect evidence of investigations. In addition, the
sample of the studies exceeds 100 students in 3 of the articles,
and is greater than 40 participants in 6 of the 7 investigations.
The results provided by the papers under study are very
promising and interesting, and seem to confirm the claims of
the Scratch development team. Thus, 5 of the articles confirm
that students developed their problem solving skills after the
investigation [30, 31, 32, 33, 25]. However, one of the articles
states that no significant differences were detected in this
regard, although there were differences in the self-confidence
in the problem solving ability [34]. Moreover, Giordano and
Maiorana claim that students also improved reasoning
practices [33]; Gupta, Tejovanth and Murthy indicate
improvements in logic, creativity and learning skills [35]; and
finally, Lai and Lai detected a better performance in logical
thinking [25].
V. CONCLUSIONS
This study has presented a systematic literature review of
scientific publications on the use of computer programming
with Scratch as an educational tool that enhances learning out-
comes of subjects not related with ICT, and that allows to
develop other skills and capabilities beyond coding skills. The
aim of this review is to make a synthesis of the most important
findings that could be used to identify possible priorities for
future research.
In relation to programming integration into the curriculum,
the 8 analyzed studies have a very promising outlook, as they
show that programming can be a tool to improve learning
subjects like mathematics, science, arts, writing or English as
a second language. However, these studies did not follow, in a
majority, the basic recommendations to develop research in
education, and it seems clear that more empirical studies
providing quantitative data to obtain clearer conclusions are
necessary.
Regarding the development of other skills, the conclusions
of the 7 articles analyzed show that by learning to program,
students improved their problem solving skills, reasoning
practices, logical thinking and creativity. In this case,

furthermore, research was performed in a majority of the cases
using control groups, pre and post tests, and a larger number
of participants.
Therefore, although the findings of the analyzed articles
present a very promising picture, it is necessary to conduct
TABLE IV. SKILLS DEVELOPED BY CODING WITH SCRATCH
Paper
Description
Duration
Sample
Control
Group
Participants
selection
Data
Recollection
Proved results
Non-proved results
[25]
Effectiveness of using
Scratch programming
in science learning
15 weeks
96 fifth
graders
No
Pre and post
logical thinking
and problem
solving tests
Better performance in
logical thinking and
problem solving
[30]
Using Scratch as an
environment to
strengthen students’
problem solving skills
1 month
113 5th
and 6th
graders
Yes
Schools
groups
Pre and post
problem solving
tests
Students in the treatment
group show
improvement in their
problem solving skills at
a rate greater than those
in the control group
[31]
Problem Based
Learning course with
Scratch. Design
scenario about
computer viruses
12
sessions
91
students,
2nd year
high
school
Yes
Certification
test
Pre and post
tests,
questionnaires
Improved problem-
solving ability for
Mathematics gifted and
average students.
Students learning
motivation showed
significant improvement
[32]
Effect of programming
with Scratch on the
learners’ problem-
solving abilities and
logical reasoning skills
1 term
130 6th
graders
Yes
School groups
Pre and post
problem solving
and logical
reasoning tests
The effect on problem-
solving abilities is
significant, especially at
the reason of prediction
No significant effect on
logical reasoning skills
[33]
CS course to improve
problems solving skills
and reasoning
practices
2 terms
28
students,
14-16
years old
No
School groups
Pre and post
exams, surveys
Improved problem
solving skills and
reasoning practices
[34]
Effect of Scratch
programming on
students’ problem
solving skills
5 weeks
49 5th
graders
No
School group
Pre and post
tests
Increase in self-
confidence in problem
solving ability
No significant
differences in problem
solving skills
[35]
Elementary
programming and
hardware interfacing
course
Series of
work-
shops
150
students,
15-18
years old
Yes
School group
Test
Increase in logic,
creativity and learning
skills
further research with larger samples to justify the use of
programming as an educational tool in K-12. Thus we would
be laying the groundwork for educational officials to modify
existing curricula, avoiding the possibility that, as it already
happened in the 90s, after years of success and media
coverage, computer programming could disappear again of the
educational landscape.
At this moment we are in the process of performing a broader
systematic literature review, as we are not restricting the
programming language to Scratch. Thus, we will be able to
identify potential differences when reviewing uses of
programming languages such as Logo, Alice, Agentsheets or
Greenfoot, which have also been utilized in K-12 educational
environments. In consequence, the findings of this new review
will allow to state stronger conclusions regarding the
usefulness of computer programming as an educational tool
for primary and secondary students.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The work of both authors has been funded in part by the
Region of Madrid under project “eMadrid - Investigación y
Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad
de Madrid” (S2013/ICE-2715).
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