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Learning to code or coding to learn? A systematic review
Abstract
The resurgence of computer programming in the school curriculum brings a promise of preparing students for the future that goes beyond just learning how to code. This study reviewed research to analyse educational outcomes for children learning to code at school. A systematic review was applied to identify relevant articles and a thematic analysis to synthesise the findings. Ten articles were included in the synthesis and an overarching model was developed which depicts the themes. The results demonstrate that although students are learning to code, a range of other educational outcomes can be learnt or practiced through the teaching of coding. These included mathematical problem-solving, critical thinking, social skills, self-management and academic skills. The review also identified the importance of instructional design for developing these educational outcomes through coding.
... With the rapid development of computer and artificial intelligence technology and its widespread application in many professions, disciplines and areas, the capacity to code computer programs is increasingly recognized as an essential skill for students (Dohn, 2020;Lindberg et al., 2019;Margulieux et al., 2020;Moreno-León et al., 2016). More importantly, coding is believed to have the potential to promote the development of a series of 21st-century skills, including logical reasoning (Dohn, 2020), creativity (Boz & Allexsaht-Snider, 2021), critical thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019), problem-solving (Popat & Starkey, 2019) and computational thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Tikva & Tambouris, 2021;Wing, 2006). In recent years, coding is also emphasized in different policy documents (e.g., Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2015; Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2018; National Research Council of the United States, 2012), and has been integrated into the K-12 curriculum in many countries (Lindberg et al., 2019;Moreno-León et al., 2016). ...
... With the rapid development of computer and artificial intelligence technology and its widespread application in many professions, disciplines and areas, the capacity to code computer programs is increasingly recognized as an essential skill for students (Dohn, 2020;Lindberg et al., 2019;Margulieux et al., 2020;Moreno-León et al., 2016). More importantly, coding is believed to have the potential to promote the development of a series of 21st-century skills, including logical reasoning (Dohn, 2020), creativity (Boz & Allexsaht-Snider, 2021), critical thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019), problem-solving (Popat & Starkey, 2019) and computational thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Tikva & Tambouris, 2021;Wing, 2006). In recent years, coding is also emphasized in different policy documents (e.g., Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2015; Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2018; National Research Council of the United States, 2012), and has been integrated into the K-12 curriculum in many countries (Lindberg et al., 2019;Moreno-León et al., 2016). ...
... With the rapid development of computer and artificial intelligence technology and its widespread application in many professions, disciplines and areas, the capacity to code computer programs is increasingly recognized as an essential skill for students (Dohn, 2020;Lindberg et al., 2019;Margulieux et al., 2020;Moreno-León et al., 2016). More importantly, coding is believed to have the potential to promote the development of a series of 21st-century skills, including logical reasoning (Dohn, 2020), creativity (Boz & Allexsaht-Snider, 2021), critical thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019), problem-solving (Popat & Starkey, 2019) and computational thinking (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Tikva & Tambouris, 2021;Wing, 2006). In recent years, coding is also emphasized in different policy documents (e.g., Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2015; Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2018; National Research Council of the United States, 2012), and has been integrated into the K-12 curriculum in many countries (Lindberg et al., 2019;Moreno-León et al., 2016). ...
Coding is a highly valued skill used in many disciplines across the globe. However, it is reported that students’ coding interest and self-efficacy are usually low. Theoretically, the affective domain of coding is in its infancy, and very few studies have set out to identify the determinants of coding interest and self-efficacy. This study explored how mathematics interest and self-efficacy, as two important mathematics-related factors, influenced coding interest and self-efficacy. Employing a quantitative cross-sectional survey design, 605 students from two public senior high schools in two big cities in China were investigated. A two-step structural equation modeling approach was adopted to analyze the data. Findings showed that mathematics interest, directly and indirectly, influenced coding interest significantly. In addition, coding self-efficacy was indirectly impacted by mathematics interest and coding interest was indirectly impacted by mathematics self-efficacy significantly. Most importantly, our model has proved to be powerful in explaining coding interest. This study contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of the relationship between mathematics and coding attitudes, seldom explored in senior high school settings.
... 2019). Bu doğrultuda, son yıllardaki çalışmalar incelendiğinde kodlama eğitiminin bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerisi üzerindeki etkilerini inceleyen çalışma sayısında bir artış olduğu görülmüştür (Popat ve Starkey, 2019;Top ve Arabacıoğlu, 2021). ...
... Bu doğrultuda, alanyazında okul öncesi dönemde kodlama eğitimine ilişkin birçok çalışma yer almakta ve bu çalışmaların bütüncül bir yaklaşımla ele alınması elde edilen sonuçların genel durumunu ortaya koyması ve araştırmacılara yol göstermesi açısından önemlidir. Nitekim, kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili yapılan sistematik derleme çalışmaları incelendiğinde, uluslararası alanyazında ilkokul ve sonraki kademelerle kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili sistematik incelemelerin yanı sıra (Deniz ve Eryılmaz, 2019; Papadakis, 2021;Popat ve Starkey, 2019;Yolcu ve Demirer,2017;Zhang ve Nouri, 2019), okul öncesi kademesinde kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili de sistematik derleme çalışmalarının yer aldığı görülmüştür (Macrides vd. 2021;Papadakis vd., 2018). ...
... When the systematic review studies on the subject of coding education are examined, it has been seen that studies are generally conducted in primary school and later stages (Deniz & Eryılmaz, 2019;Papadakis, 2021;Papadakis et al., 2018;Popat & Starkey, 2019;Yolcu & Demirer,2017;Zhang & Nouri, 2019). In addition, as a result of the searches made, a systematic review of studies on coding education in the pre-school period in Turkey was not found. ...
This study aims to reveal the methodological tendencies and basic findings by examining the scientific studies conducted in Turkey on coding education in the pre-school period with the systematic review method. In this direction, 30 studies determined as a result of searches on YÖK Thesis Center, TR Directory and Google Academic databases were analyzed by the content analysis method. As a result of the study, it has been determined that the number of studies conducted in Turkey on coding education in the pre-school period has increased in recent years. However, it is not at the desired level. It was determined that the most qualitative and quantitative research designs were used in the studies examined, and pre-school students between the ages of 5-6 were chosen as the sample group. In addition to these, it was determined that the most problem-solving skill variable was investigated in the studies, and non-computer coding activities were frequently used. In addition, it was determined that the Bee-Bot tool was used the most in robotic coding, and the code.org platform was used most in block-based coding. Finally, as a result of the studies examined, it has been determined that the most frequently stated advantage of coding education in the pre-school period is that students gain problem-solving skills. On the other hand, the most commonly indicated difficulty is that students have problems understanding the subject of loop structures.
... Similarly, solving problems through mathematical modeling requires students to decompose a problem into its parts (e.g., variables), understand their relations (e.g., functions), use mathematical symbols to represent these relations (e.g., equations), and apply algorithms to obtain a solution-activities mimicking the coding process. These two examples illustrate that the processes involved in coding are close to those involved in performing skills outside the coding domain (Popat and Starkey, 2019). This observation has motivated researchers and educators to hypothesize transfer effects of learning to code, and, in fact, some studies found positive correlations between coding skills and other skills, such as information processing, reasoning, and mathematical skills (Shute et al., 2017). ...
... Beside the cost of effective instructional designs, another cost refers to the cognitive demands of the transfer: existing models of transfer suggest that the more similar the tasks during the instruction in one domain (e.g., coding) are to those in another domain (e.g., mathematical problem solving), the more likely students can transfer their knowledge and skills between domains (Taatgen, 2013). Mastering this transfer involves additional cognitive skills, such as executive functioning (e.g., switching between tasks) and metacognition (e.g., recognizing similar tasks and solution patterns; Salomon and Perkins, 1987;Popat and Starkey, 2019). It is therefore key to further investigate the conditions and mechanisms underlying the possible transfer of the skills students acquire and the knowledge they gain during coding instruction via carefully designed learning interventions and experimental studies are needed that include the teaching, mediating, and assessment of transfer. ...
... Overall, the evidence supporting the cognitive benefits of learning to code is promising. In the first part of this opinion paper, we argued that coding skills and other skills, such as creative thinking and mathematical problem solving, share skillsets and that these common elements form the ground for expecting some degree of transfer from learning to code into other cognitive domains (e.g., Shute et al., 2017;Popat and Starkey, 2019). In fact, the existing meta-analyses supported the possible existence of this transfer for the two domains. ...
... In the future, computational thinking skills will be a necessity. Proponents (Buitrago Florez et al., [7,42,52]) argue that teaching computational thinking can have knock on effects as it is often described as a set of related competencies including creativity, algorithmic and critical thinking, and hence could lead to improved academic performance [52]. The NRC [37] concluded that teaching programming improves interpersonal, self-regulatory, and metacognitive thinking skills. ...
... In order to assess the effectiveness of instructional interventions targeting CT skills, some researchers have chosen to narrow the field by focusing on one associated competency such as programming and its relation to the tools and strategies for teaching and learning programming (Buitrago Florez et al., [7]). Researchers acknowledge that there is scant evidence that programming leads to the development of higher-order thinking skills [42,46], possibly due to the difficulty of the task limits its application to a wider audience [39], though some studies have shown that students taught programming perform better on logical reasoning and algorithmic thinking [47,56]. Indeed, proponents believe the value in teaching CT skills is because these are skills that are in demand today. ...
... Indeed, proponents believe the value in teaching CT skills is because these are skills that are in demand today. However, in a recent systematic review of K-12 CT research, Popat and Starkey [42] identified ten articles that explored learning gains of learning how to program. According to their review, teaching coding influenced a range of educational outcomes including problem-solving, critical thinking, social skills, self-regulation, and other academic skills such as reading and spelling. ...
Teaching computational thinking (CT) has become a priority for educators and policymakers tasked with educating and training students for future jobs which are predicted to be increasingly automated. Recent research on effective instructional interventions for developing computational thinking skills, including algo-rithmic and critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and cooperativity, suggests that teaching and learning CT can improve student academic performance. In fact, the extant literature is quite sanguine about the topic of CT. However, few studies have attempted to establish a relationship between CT skills and academic performance. In the present cross-sectional study, we employ path analysis to model the structural relationship between self-reported CT skills and academic performance of a sample of 81 computer science undergraduates enrolled at a Southwestern American university. We found few direct relationships between CT skills and academic performance. We only find a significant positive relationship between creativity and academic performance and a significant negative relationship between cooperativity and academic performance. Our findings are surprising considering the abundant research promoting computational thinking as a key component of 21st century skills. The findings call for further in-depth analysis of computational thinking and the influence on students' learning and learning outcomes. We discuss our results with respect to recent educational mandates for including CT and instructional alignment in school curricula. Our findings contribute to the existing discussion by helping to clarify the relationship between CT skills and academic performance in higher education.
... On the other hand, programming education is an effective mechanism for cultivating students' CT skills, as indicated by existing studies showing that students' CT skills can be exercised in the process of participating in programming activities (Angeli & Valanides, 2020;Papadakis et al., 2016;Saxena et al., 2020). Scholars are also constantly looking for more effective ways to cultivate students' CT skills in programming classrooms and are striving for continual innovations in teaching tools and methods (Lye & Koh, 2014;Moreno León et al., 2016;Popat & Starkey, 2019). However, to improve the quality of classroom programming instruction that incorporates CT skills, instructors' attention should be paid to changing students' internal attitudes in the learning process more than just to improving external teaching methods. ...
... Moreno León et al. (2016) suggested that K-12 programming education should not be limited to the instruction of coding, but be aimed at promoting various thinking skills for students. Similarly, Popat and Starkey (2019) believed that the prevalence of programming curricula in schools, beyond merely imparting coding skills, has enriched students with the hope of preparing for the future; students can make additional educational achievements in other areas while learning to code, such as mathematical problem-solving, critical thinking, social skills, self-management, and academic skills. The connection between programming education and CT skills is reflected in the process in which computer programing concepts are used to solve problems. ...
... In this regard, more attention is likely paid to J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f students' command of programming know-how with a utilitarian purpose geared toward future education and employment and the sacrifice of scopes for continuous CT skills training. This runs counter to the nature of programming education in that programming is about not just coding but enhancing thinking skills in the coding process (Popat & Starkey, 2019). Therefore, no matter how long students have learned programming, instructors should pay more attention to cultivating their thinking skills, especially their CT skills, than just to imparting coding knowledge. ...
Programming attitude has received increasing attention in programming and computational thinking (CT) education. However, at present, analysis remains scant on the correlation between students' programming attitudes and their CT skills, and less attention is paid to the influencing effects of gender and programming experience. This study first validated a newly developed programming attitudes scale (χ²/df = 2.308, RMSEA = 0.073, CFI = 0.925, TLI = 0.912) among 1180 seventh-grade students (12–13 years old). It then analyzed the relationship between students' programming attitudes and CT skills considering gender differences. Students' programming attitudes significantly predicted their CT skills. Girls have higher CT skills than boys, but their more negative programming attitudes may affect their continued skill development. Third, the relationship among programming experience, programming attitudes, and CT skills was discussed among the sample (N = 175) with programming experience, revealing that programming attitudes played an intermediary role between programming experience and CT skills. Two specific factors of programming experience (first time learning programming and programming learning duration) had differing effects on students' programming attitudes and CT skills. For programming attitudes, the grade in which students got started with programming had no effect on their programming attitudes, but programming attitudes rose with increased programming learning time. For CT, students who learned programming starting in second grade possessed the highest CT level. In addition, there is an inverted U-shaped curve between students' programming learning duration and CT skills, peaked at the fourth year of programming learning career. Implications for promoting junior high school students’ CT skills and their positive attitudes toward programming are also discussed.
... 2019). Bu doğrultuda, son yıllardaki çalışmalar incelendiğinde kodlama eğitiminin bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerisi üzerindeki etkilerini inceleyen çalışma sayısında bir artış olduğu görülmüştür (Popat ve Starkey, 2019;Top ve Arabacıoğlu, 2021). ...
... Bu doğrultuda, alanyazında okul öncesi dönemde kodlama eğitimine ilişkin birçok çalışma yer almakta ve bu çalışmaların bütüncül bir yaklaşımla ele alınması elde edilen sonuçların genel durumunu ortaya koyması ve araştırmacılara yol göstermesi açısından önemlidir. Nitekim, kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili yapılan sistematik derleme çalışmaları incelendiğinde, uluslararası alanyazında ilkokul ve sonraki kademelerle kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili sistematik incelemelerin yanı sıra (Deniz ve Eryılmaz, 2019; Papadakis, 2021;Popat ve Starkey, 2019;Yolcu ve Demirer,2017;Zhang ve Nouri, 2019), okul öncesi kademesinde kodlama eğitimi ile ilgili de sistematik derleme çalışmalarının yer aldığı görülmüştür (Macrides vd. 2021;Papadakis vd., 2018). ...
... When the systematic review studies on the subject of coding education are examined, it has been seen that studies are generally conducted in primary school and later stages (Deniz & Eryılmaz, 2019;Papadakis, 2021;Papadakis et al., 2018;Popat & Starkey, 2019;Yolcu & Demirer,2017;Zhang & Nouri, 2019). In addition, as a result of the searches made, a systematic review of studies on coding education in the pre-school period in Turkey was not found. ...
Bu çalışmanın amacı, okul öncesi dönemde kodlama eğitimine ilişkin Türkiye’de yapılan bilimsel
çalışmaların sistematik inceleme yöntemi ile incelenerek, konu ile ilgili araştırmaların yöntemsel
eğilimlerinin, konularının, incelenen değişkenlerinin ve temel bulgularının ortaya çıkarılmasıdır. Bu
doğrultuda, YÖK Tez Merkezi, TR Dizin ve Google Akademik veri tabanları üzerinde yapılan aramalar
sonucunda belirlenen 30 çalışma (14 Tez, 14 Makale ve 2 Konferans Bildirisi), içerik analizi yöntemi ile
analiz edilmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda, okul öncesi dönemde kodlama eğitimine ilişkin Türkiye’de yapılan
çalışma sayısında istenen düzeyde olmasa da son yıllarda artış olduğu tespit edilmiştir. İncelenen
çalışmalarda en çok nitel ve nicel araştırma desenlerinin kullanıldığı ve örneklem grubu olarak genellikle
5-6 yaş arasındaki okul öncesi öğrencilerinin seçildiği belirlenmiştir. İncelenen çalışmaların, çoğunlukla
sınıf ortamında, kodlama derslerinde ve 8 ile 10 hafta arasında süren uygulamalarla gerçekleştirildiği
tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca çalışmalarda kodlama eğitimi ile genellikle algoritma tasarımı, sıralama, döngü,
komut ve koşul gibi kodlama sürecinin temel kavramlarının öğretildiği görülmüştür. Bunlara ek olarak,
çalışmalarda en çok problem çözme becerisi değişkeninin araştırıldığı ve sıklıkla bilgisayarsız kodlama
etkinliklerinin kullanıldığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca, robotik kodlamada en çok Bee-Bot aracının, blok
tabanlı kodlamada ise en çok code.org platformunun kullanıldığı belirlenmiştir. İncelenen çalışmalar
sonucunda, okul öncesi dönemde kodlama eğitiminin en sık belirtilen avantajının öğrencilere problem
çözme becerisinin kazandırılması, en sık belirtilen zorluğunun ise döngü yapıları konusunun öğrencilerin
anlamakta zorluk yaşamaları olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Son olarak sistematik incelemeden elde edilen
bulgular doğrultusunda uygulayıcılara ve araştırmacılara yönelik çeşitli öneriler sunulmuştur.
... Recently, increasing attention has been paid to coding education for preschool children and kindergarteners (Arfé et al., 2019(Arfé et al., , 2020. Young children have been found capable of learning coding skills (e.g., Lye & Koh, 2014;Popat & Starkey, 2019). Additionally, coding learning has positive impact on the development of many other cognitive abilities, such as planning and inhibition, the abilities that help young children maintain and retrieve information in goal-directed ways (Arfé et al., 2019(Arfé et al., , 2020Scherer et al., 2019). ...
... Computational thinking refers to the process of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behaviors based on the principles and methods of computer science (Wing, 2006(Wing, , 2008. As the coding process involves a large amount of knowledge about computer science, many educators claim that learning coding provides an important context and a set of opportunities to develop computational thinking for K-12 students (Popat & Starkey, 2019). Thus, coding ability and computational thinking are thought to be closely related. ...
Coding ability has become an important literacy in the twenty-first century. Coding education starts from early childhood in many countries. However, it lacks of tools with good psychometric properties to assess the changes in the coding ability of young children (i.e., preschoolers or kindergarteners) after learning coding. To fill this gap, the current study aimed to develop a tool by using card-based and age-appropriate games to measure the coding ability of young children aged 5–6 years. In the tool, coding ability was evaluated on the dimensions of Variable, Control, Modularity, and Algorithm. The first three dimensions of the tool included the skills of Assignment, Type, Conditional, Loop, Decomposition, and Function. We tested the psychometric properties of the tool by assessing its reliability and validity. The results indicated that the tool not only had good internal consistency, inter-raters reliability, and test-retest reliability, but also showed good content validity, construct validity, and item discrimination. Additionally, the coding ability measured by the tool was significantly related to creative thinking and computational thinking, suggesting good criterion validity. To conclude, this study developed an age-appropriate and game-based tool with good psychometric properties to assess the coding ability of young children. This tool can be also used to evaluate the effectiveness of educational coding programs for young children.
... This return of programming in schools is attributable to three curricular intentions [45]. The first is to respond to an economic imperative that has become a leitmotif: to prepare the future workforce for the new technology industry. ...
... Then, the textbook gives reasons for learning programming, which mainly resemble jihadist injunctions from ISIS. In contrast to the curricular intentions usually associated with youth learning programming, which we presented earlier (economic imperative of workforce training; entrepreneurial ideal of innovation; development of computational thinking) [45], we consider ISIS's curricular intentions to rather be oriented toward indoctrination, militarism, and preparation of a "war workforce," as evidenced by the following excerpt: "The Islamic State needs creative programmers who are capable of developing and upgrading its weapons system, in accordance with Allah's command" [18]. ...
From 2014 to 2017, the Islamic State in Irak and Syria (ISIS), a terrorist political organization of Salafist jihadist ideology, had put in place an operational and relatively stable educational system. Among its Complementary Programs, ISIS included a curriculum for programming using the Scratch software. In this article, we discuss this curriculum by analyzing the content of the official ISIS programming textbook, with the objectives of characterizing: 1) the curriculum’s pedagogical intentions and definition of programming; 2) the programming curriculum; and 3) the religious and military indoctrination value. We found that, first, ISIS’s programming curriculum intentions are more about religious and military injunctions to build the caliphate than they are about developing 21st-century skills such as computational thinking. Second, although the progression of learning in the sequence of activities designed by ISIS seems logical and, overall, well-ordered, the ISIS programming curriculum does not encourage the development of 21st-century skills such as problem solving, discovery learning, or creativity—nor for that matter, the transfer of programming knowledge to different contexts. Finally, the textbook is particularly rich in elements of military and religious indoctrination and effectively participates in the indoctrination of students by helping to inculcate values consistent with ISIS’s jihadist ideology. This contribution seeks to better understand ISIS’s approach to education, which could provide support for initiatives aimed at rebuilding impacted education systems and groups.
... Hundreds of millions of government and non-profit dollars have been spent supporting such programs. The most widely accepted justification for this response stems not from social justice arguments, but from the global need for human capital for the information technology industry (Popat and Starkey, 2019). 3 This reasoning provides occasion for pause and reflection. ...
... Being able to work the land did not provide them or their families the social mobility they imagined possible from a new labor system. Today, computer coding is a skill necessary for entry into many computer and technology careers, and learning to code can provide students with a range of further cognitive skills (Popat and Starkey 2019). Coding academies, programs, and schools have proliferated, many targeting girls of color. ...
There are sustained international efforts to increase the number and percentage of people of color who pursue STEM education and careers. These initiatives are most widely justified as means to provide human capital for technology companies. Particularly for women of color (African American, Native American, Latinx) in the US, far too many digital inclusion endeavors entrench women of color, sometimes unwittingly, in a labor system that treats them merely as commodities. As a result, women of color either avoid lives in computing or leave them. To display and critique some of the aspects of this phenomenon, we discuss it in comparison to the labor system of sharecropping in the southern US after the Civil War. We challenge those who fund, design, implement, and evaluate efforts at diversity and inclusion to see women of color not as commodities, but as agents with interests in social and economic emancipation and autonomy. INTRODUCTION For quite some time, there has been much attention about why there continues to be so few women of color (e.g. African American, Latinx, Native American) entering and remaining in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The issue has assumed attention in the US particularly for technology and computer science related fields. In this article, we respond to 2018-year's conference question with a challenge. 1 Rather than focus on who does STEM and why, we invert the question and consider who does not do STEM, computer science in particular, and why not? Based on Scott's twenty-years of experience in leading and researching girl-centered technology programs (Scott, in press), we conjecture that disparity persists partly because many digital inclusion efforts reinforce, sometimes unwittingly, a labor system that has aspects similar to sharecropping. Before offering this perspective, however, we review the current state of affairs that prompts our critical analysis.
... Several studies have also confirmed that CT skills have been applied in mathematics and science fields (Ioannidou et al., 2011;Repenning et al., 2015). However, a recent review shows that most empirical studies of CT focus on the knowledge base, learning strategies, assessment, tools, and factors influencing CT acquisition (Tikva & Tambouris, 2021), and there is a lack of systematic examinations on the transfer effects of CT in areas beyond computer science and CT (Popat & Starkey, 2019). ...
... They identified positive skill transfers from learning programming to creative thinking, mathematical skills and spatial skills. These results echoed the findings in another review on the benefits of learning programming conducted by Popat and Starkey (2019), which confirmed the learning of programming could bring additional educational outcomes for students in terms of their higher-order skills (e.g., mathematical and critical thinking skills) and personal skills (e.g., communication, collaboration and self-management skills). ...
Background
Computational thinking (CT) is regarded as an essential 21st‐century skill, and attempts have been made to integrate it into other subjects. Instructional approaches to CT development and assessment in the field of computer science have attracted global attention, but the influence of CT skills on other subject areas is under‐researched.
Objective
Our goal is to investigate the transfer effects of CT in different subject areas and examine the educational characteristics of CT intervention approaches that promote the transfer of learning.
Method
We carefully selected and reviewed 55 empirical studies from leading bibliographic databases and examined the transfer of CT using a meta‐analysis and a qualitative synthesis.
Results and Conclusions
We identified and summarized these effects in the fields of mathematics, science, engineering and the humanities. A meta‐analysis of these studies identified a generally significant effect of the transfer of CT skills to other subject areas. We also explored the characteristics of CT interventions that aid the transfer of learning by qualitatively assessing the identified studies. The results of the review offer a holistic view of the trends in CT transfer research that can be used as a reference for both researchers and instructors.
... It requires patience, frustration tolerance, and acceptance of critical feedback. Learning to code is one way that children can learn these soft skills (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Strawhacker & Bers, 2019). ...
... These coding experiences also involve the logical thinking and problem-solving process discussed above in the Core Competency section on thinking skills; and when students embark on an innovative project such as designing a new video game, they also must employ many of the previously discussed creativity skills. Coding also helps to develop some of the executive-function skills mentioned above such as perseverance and time management, as well as collaboration and cooperation when students are coding in groups (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Strawhacker & Bers, 2019). ...
In this article, I describe a series of Five Core Competencies that gifted education specialists should consider integrating into their teaching to respond to the many changes that are taking place in technology, work, and career preparation. Although the focus of this theory is on high- level jobs usually pursued by college graduates and advanced degree students, this work also has relevance for the general-education community because future employment at all levels will require various degrees of proficiency in the Core Competencies discussed below. Students who will pursue college degrees and professional level jobs will need to attain advanced levels of these skills, have the opportunity to explore a wide range of skills, and be able to learn them more rapidly. Students should be placed in learning situations that require the adaptability that is the theme of this article so that they will learn to apply the skills in ways that will lead to success in job-transformational situations. Leadership and advanced-level positions require high levels of both performance and flexibility in the competencies that will be discussed below. The Catch-A-Wave Theory of Adaptability will be introduced with the presentation of background information and a rationale for the theory. The theory itself along with the five Core Competencies included in the theory will follow and then be supplemented with a section that provides strategies and resources for developing those competencies.
... Currently, the area of computer programming is fundamental to the technological development of computer science and the information technology (IT) industry. This situation makes the demand for trained personnel in this area increase in order to generate progress and economic innovation (Popat & Starkey, 2019); therefore, computer programming courses in the academy are essential. In these courses, each student is required to appropriate concepts, transform the proposed problems into certain steps, and be able to code the solution to the problems by making use of a programming language (Martins et al., 2018). ...
Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of computer-assisted gamification on the learning motivation of computer programming students. Background: The teaching-learning of computer programming involves challenges that imply using learning environments in which the student is actively involved. Gamification is an innovative approach that allows the creation of environments using game-related elements in order to increase the levels of participation, engagement, and motivation of the participants. Several studies have integrated gamification in academic contexts, where generally the qualitative results show remarkable effects in different aspects analyzed; however, there is still no consensus on the quantitative results presented in different investigations. For this reason, it is necessary to conduct more empirical studies in computer programming learning environments to better understand the impact of gamification on aspects such as students’ motivation to learn. Methodology: A quasi-experimental mixed explanatory study was designed and carried out in which a gamified tool was integrated into the methodology of an Intro-duction to computer programming course. Through a literature review and a comparative analysis, we selected CodeGym as the computer-assisted gamified environment suitable for integration into the activities of the course. Subsequently, we proposed an educational intervention where the instruments were applied to characterize the motivational construct by means of the self-report questionnaire MSLQ-Colombia and a survey of student opinion. The MSLQ-Colombia questionnaire characterizes distinctive features of students’ motivation to learn. This instrument was adapted and validated to Spanish based on the original MSLQ (Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire). Forty-eight students participated in this study, distributed in two control groups and one experimental group selected by means of a non-probabilistic convenience sampling technique. Contribution: The effects reported through this research provide empirical evidence related to the effect of computer-assisted gamification on students’ motivation to learn. The results contribute to understanding the effects that gamification can generate in the motivation of computer programming students. Findings: The quantitative results obtained through the MSLQ-Colombia showed that the students in the experimental group significantly increased the levels related to the motivational aspects of Task Valuation. The results obtained by the survey (quantitative and qualitative data) confirmed the quantitative effect found and, additionally, generated inputs related to other motivational aspects: the participants expressed that due to the development of the practical exercises proposed with CodeGym, they felt authentic desires to learn (Orientation of the study activities towards Intrinsic Goals), greater self-confidence to approach the learning tasks (Beliefs of Control of Learning), and better expectations to achieve their learning goals in the subject (Expectations of Self-Efficacy in Learning). Recommendations for Practitioners: The computer-assisted gamification generated a good reception by the students of Computer Programming, making the teaching-learning process pleasant and favoring the interest towards the topics generally considered as challenging. It is recommended that teachers in the area of computer programming continue adopting and using gamified tools that support and facilitate the appropriation of knowledge of their students in a dynamic and innovative way. Recommendation for Researchers: The empirical results reported in this study allow a better understanding of the real effects that gamification can have on programming students’ motivation to learn. However, there are still great challenges in trying to understand and generalize these findings. It would be interesting to deepen the results obtained by integrating gamification in environments where there are more participants and longitudinal studies where the impact is analyzed over time. Impact on Society: The results of this research showed that computer-assisted gamification generated a significant increase in the ratings related to the interest, importance, or liking towards the topics proposed in the subject of computer programming. Additionally, the participants felt authentic desires to learn (Orientation of the study activities towards Intrinsic Goals), greater self-confidence to approach the learning tasks (Beliefs of Control of Learning), and better expectations to achieve their learning goals in the subject (Expectations of Self-Efficacy in Learning). All mentioned contribute to the understanding of the real effects related to gamification in computer programming because in this way teachers and students can appropriate these methodologies in an informed way. Future Research: It would be interesting to be able to replicate the intervention carried out in this study in longitudinal research that would allow us to know the effects of gamification over a long period of time. It is also necessary to understand, through more experimental or quasi-experimental studies, the effects of computer-assisted gamification on other aspects such as academic performance, learning, active participation of students, among others.
... For such reason, it is required that programming courses are based on a model that allows putting into practice all the proposed theoretical approach. According to Popat and Starkey (2019) programming skills are 21st-century competences every person should enhance. Martins et al. (2018) state that a learning process in the programming area should allow the student to identify a real problem and transform it into a sequence of activities that will finally be translated into a language. ...
This study describes the most relevant problems and solutions found in the literature on teaching and learning of object-oriented programming (OOP). The identification of the problem was based on tertiary studies from the IEEE Xplore, Scopus, ACM Digital Library and Science Direct repositories. The problems and solutions identified were ranked through the multi-criteria decision methods DEMATEL and TOPSIS in order to determine the best solutions to the problems found and to apply these results in the academic context. The main contribution of this study was the categorization of OOP problems and solutions, as well as the proposal of strategies to improve the problem. Among the most relevant problems it was found: 1) difficulty in understanding, teaching and implementing object-orientation, 2) difficulties related to understanding classes and 3) difficulty in understanding object-oriented relationships. After doing the multicriteria analysis, it was found that the most important solutions to face the problems found in the teaching of OOP were: 1) use of active learning techniques and intrinsic rewards and 2) emphasize on basic programming concepts and introduce the object-oriented paradigm at an early point in the curriculum. As a conclusion, it was evidenced that there is coherence between the literary guarantee that gives support to the problems and solutions in the teaching of OOP presented in this study and the approaches that experts in the area of development highlight as relevant when they identify weaknesses in the process.
... It is vital that educators adopt a conscious educational strategy to exploit the benefits of digital tools such as digital tablets, and not merely assume that replacing the analogue on its own shall suffice (Bers, 2018;Falloon, 2013;Otterborn et al., 2019;Popat & Starkey, 2019). In addition, literature (Bers, 2018) shows that the perceived need for children to gain digital competence is increasing. ...
Preschool curriculum policies around the world emphasize the role of digital tools in educational practice. At the same time, the availability of tools such as tablets has increased significantly in the last decade. Although preschools have worked with these tools during the last years, little is known about what actual activities teachers implement and perform in practice and how digital tablets can be effectively integrated. In contributing to filling this gap, we used online surveys to probe approximately 500 teachers’ use of digital tablets in their practice. Results showed that teachers believe that tablets increase both collaboration and participation. In connection with the subject of technology, many creative ideas and solutions evolved. Computer programming activities also emerged saliently, which the teachers saw as a means to foster generic skills and subject knowledge. The findings point to digital tablets being associated with preschool teachers’ implementation of meaningful, engaging, self-generated, and rich activities. In helping to integrate emerging digital tools in educational practice, teachers are encouraged to consult online forums, web resources, available online courses, and articles. Teachers are also advised to allocate the necessary time required to plan and implement the work.
... Nonetheless, in recent years much emphasis has been placed on coding (Popat & Starkey, 2019), the maker movement (Papavlasopoulou, Giannakos, & Jaccheri, 2017) and digital competence (Carretero, Vuorikari, & Punie, 2017). The initial vaunted-potential of digital competence to be part of a rapidly changing and smart society turned later into a series of predictable failures to promote access or socially relevant learning, beyond the technological skills (Sancho-Gil, Rivera-Vargas, & Miño-Puigcercós, 2020). ...
The phenomenology around data is complex and evolving, meaning there might not be a universal perspective on educators’ data literacy that institutions and the system can embrace in search of social justice. In this chapter, I claim that an evolving, situated and explorative approach should be considered. Such an approach should be based on professional knowledge and practice entrenched with theoretical knowledge in an institutional endeavour, ethics and practices, which configure a fair data culture. I present the results of 12 workshops (eight with English speaking participants, three with the Spanish speaking community and one in the Italian context) based on hermeneutic circles conducted from 2018 to 2020, involving 294 educators, PhD students and faculty professors. I consider how the educators’ conversation triggers understanding around educators’ literacies to deal with situated data epistemologies and practices. I build on this reflection to cultivate educators’ reflection and engagement with situated data practices to promote relevant professional development.
... Nonetheless, in recent years much emphasis has been placed on coding (Popat and Starkey, 2019), the maker movement (Papavlasopoulou et al., 2017) and digital competence (Carretero et al., 2017). Initial claims for the potential of digital competence to be part of a rapidly changing and smart society turned later into a series of predictable difficulties in promoting access or socially relevant learning, beyond the technological skills . ...
... Computation enables students to pursue creative solutions [20,21], more directly engage in sense-making [5,6,22,23], and test a variety of model-based predictions [9,21,24,25]. Such activities equalize student mathematical backgrounds [26][27][28], promote deeper learning [13,21,29,30], and support underrepresented groups [9,[31][32][33]. In physics and beyond, computational thinking has become its own suite of learning objectives, including data practices, modeling and simulation practices, computational problem solving practices, and systems thinking [9,10,13,29,30,[34][35][36]. ...
Undergraduate physics education has greatly benefited from the introduction of computational activities. However, despite the benefits computation has delivered, we still lack a complete understanding of the computationally integrated learning experience from the student perspective. In particular, we are interested in investigating how students develop expert-like perceptions of computation as a practice within the professional physics community. To investigate this aspect of student development, we employ the Communities of Practice framework, which describes how students navigate through a professional community by appropriating the community's practices and goals as personally important. We introduce the construct of a COP-Model as a student's internal representation of a professional community that they develop as they navigate that community. We used this construct to formulate a set of research questions and semistructured interview protocols to explore how five physics students represent the use of computation in their mental models of the global physics community. We foreground these representations in the local academic community established by their instructors in three concurrent computationally integrated physics courses. We find that these students saw computation as a normal and valuable part of physics practice, identified benefits of using computation in alignment with the physics community, struggle with confidence with regards to computation, and demonstrate some expectations for computational proficiency that are misaligned with the physics community. We establish these themes with interview excerpts and discuss implications for instruction and future research.
... Η εφαρμογή Scratch είναι μια γλώσσα οπτικού προγραμματισμού η οποία υποστηρίζεται και σε ΕΦΣ. Χρησιμοποιώντας τη γλώσσα αυτή οι μαθητές όλων των βαθμίδων, όχι μόνο αποκτούν δεξιότητες προγραμματισμού, αλλά και αναπτύσσουν εσωτερικά κίνητρα για μάθηση και ικανότητες δημιουργικής έκφρασης και συνεργασίας, συστηματικής διερεύνησης και πειραματισμού, κατανόησης μαθηματικών και υπολογιστικών εννοιών, αναλυτικού τρόπου σκέψης και αποτελεσματικής επίλυσης προβλημάτων (Popat & Starkey, 2019;Moreno-León & Robles, 2016;Resnick et al., 2009). Το Scratch μπορεί εύκολα να χρησιμοποιηθεί από τους εκπαιδευτικούς για το σχεδιασμό ψηφιακών μαθησιακών περιβαλλόντων, τα οποία εξαιτίας της διαδραστικότητας και του πολυμεσικού χαρακτήρα τους μπορούν να αποτελέσουν ένα αποτελεσματικό εκπαιδευτικό εργαλείο. ...
Η παρούσα εργασία μελετά τη συμβολή μιας διδακτικής παρέμβασης με τη χρήση δύο εφαρμογών ειδικά σχεδιασμένων στη γλώσσα οπτικού προγραμματισμού Scratch 3.0 για έξυπνες φορητές συσκευές αναφορικά με τις αντιλήψεις των μικρών παιδιών για τη λειτουργία του απλού ηλεκτρικού κυκλώματος. Δείγμα της έρευνας αποτέλεσαν 34 παιδιά νηπιαγωγείου, τα οποία χωρίστηκαν σε δύο ομάδες. Η πειραματική ομάδα διδάχθηκε με τη χρήση έξυπνων φορητών συσκευών, ενώ η ομάδα ελέγχου διδάχθηκε με τη χρήση συμβατικών υλικών. Ερευνητικά εργαλεία της εργασίας απετέλεσαν η ημι-δομημένη συνέντευξη και το ιχνογράφημα. Από την ανάλυση των δεδομένων της έρευνας προέκυψε ότι τόσο η διδασκαλία με τη χρήση έξυπνων φορητών συσκευών, όσο και η διδασκαλία με τη χρήση απτών υλικών είχαν θετική επίδραση στην κατεύθυνση της αποσταθεροποίησης των αρχικών αντιλήψεων των παιδιών σχετικά με τη λειτουργία του απλού ηλεκτρικού κυκλώματος. Η αποτελεσματικότητα της χρήσης των έξυπνων φορητών συσκευών ήταν ιδιαίτερα εμφανής στις απαντήσεις, που αφορούσαν τον αριθμό των σημείων και τις θέσεις εντοπισμού του ηλεκτρικού ρεύματος εντός του ηλεκτρικού κυκλώματος. Τέλος, η δυνατότητα παρουσίασης δυναμικών αναπαραστάσεων, που διαθέτουν οι έξυπνες φορητές συσκευές, βοήθησε τα παιδιά στην κατανόηση μίας αφηρημένης έννοιας, όπως ο ηλεκτρισμός.
... The digital world is characterized by a lot of development such as computing; this equips all young people with knowledge and skills to function optimally and increase their output (National Research Council, 2012). These computing skills can be learnt through the learning of computer education (Popat & Starkey, 2019). Computer education has two major concepts computer and education; a computer is an electronic device that accepts input, process and produces output equally communicate it while education focuses on knowledge and skill transfer (Guillén-Nieto & Aleson-Carbonell, 2012). ...
This study examines the impact of computing education and decent work on economic growth in Nigeria, using Enugu state as a case study. 250 respondents were randomly selected using a structured questionnaire. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique was employed in analyzing the data. Computing education is measured by household investment (enrolment) in ICT/computing education courses. Employment opportunities-employed household members-to-household size, remunerative employment, conditions of work and social security are used to measure decent work. Economic growth, on the other hand, is measured by per capita household income. The results of the study showed that computing education had a significant impact on economic growth. Employment opportunities and social security were also found to have a significant impact on economic growth. Conditions of work had a positive and insignificant impact on economic growth, while remunerative employment had a negative and insignificant impact on economic growth. Computing education and employment opportunities were complementary. Also, there was a complementary effect of computing education and remunerative employment, computing education and decent work, and computing education and social security on economic growth. Among the measures of decent work, conditions of work and social security were complimentary, while employment opportunities and remunerative employment, remunerative employment and conditions of work, and remunerative employment and social security were substitutes. Other variables such as the stock of human and physical capital played some diverse roles in enhancing economic growth. We, therefore, recommend the adoption of supportive policies to encourage computing education and decent work as well as physical and human capital development. In particular, policies to encourage computing education should include the incorporation of compulsory ICT/computing education courses in the nations one-year National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme.
... "Learning to program" has received considerable attention in recent years as a result of developing student problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, cooperation, and computational thinking skills (Ching et al., 2018;Hu et al., 2021;Popat & Starkey, 2019;Topalli & Cagiltay, 2018;Wing, 2006). An increasing number of researchers recognize the value of programming education and suggest that learning programming should begin at a younger age to develop logic or reasoning skills early (Good, 2011;Karakasis & Xinogalos, 2020;Khramova et al., 2019;Wing, 2006). ...
In recent years, increased attention has been given to programming instruction for primary and secondary students. Several game-based programming learning platforms, such as Code.org, Lightbot, and Run Marco, have been created to offer enticing, enjoyable, and visualizable programming learning conditions that facilitate student interest and engagement in learning programming. However, few studies have explored the perceptions of younger adolescents regarding the use of game-based programming learning. The study aims to adopt a technology acceptance model rooted in perceived enjoyment, computer self-efficacy, perceived visual attractiveness, system response, and challenge to investigate the intentions of younger adolescents regarding the use of game-based programming learning supported by Code.org and to analyze the moderating influence of gender and grade level. Data obtained from 1,539 primary (grades 3–6) and secondary (grades 7–8) students in eastern China through questionnaire surveys were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and computer self-efficacy all had a direct impact on students’ intentions to use game-based programming learning, while perceived visual attractiveness, system response, challenge, and perceived ease of use all had an indirect effect. Moreover, we also found that gender and grade level had moderating effects on student game-based programming learning. Overall, this study offered insight into younger adolescents’ intentions toward game-based programming learning.
... Both graphical and tangible coding systems have led to positive learning outcomes in studies with school-aged children (Kazakoff & Bers, 2014;Popat & Starkey, 2019;Sáez-López, Román-González, & Vázquez-Cano, 2016). In their review of empirical studies implementing Scratch in kindergarten through grade 9 (approximately 16 years), Zhang and Nouri (2019) found indications of learning for an array of coding concepts and related thinking skills. ...
In the modern world, digital technology is all around us and our ability to engage with it efficiently and productively has implications for our success as individuals and as a society. The idea that children should hone their digital literacy skills through formal schooling has been recognized by educators and policy makers alike. Before children enter schooling, however, there are now an increasing number of ways for children to begin to learn about computers, robots, and coding. In this research, we present a survey of 729 UK parents (approximately 56% Welsh) of children between 0 and 17 years and asked them to report on whether they and their child had experience with different kinds of digital technology, with a particular emphasis on computer coding. We found that children are outpacing their parents in terms of coding experience before they even turn eight-years-old. Children are generally engaged with digital technology and coding earlier than their parents were as children (e.g., over 70% of two-year-olds use smart devices; nearly 40% of 7-year-olds have experience coding). Logistic regression analyses indicate that boys are significantly more likely to have experience coding than girls and children with parents who have experience coding are significantly more likely to have experience coding themselves. Parents who placed a relatively higher value on STEM education were also more likely to report that their children had experience coding. These findings align with literature on science capital suggesting that there are societal discrepancies in children's exposure to and experiences in STEM subjects. We also found that children with reported experience coding are also reported to show more interest in coding and robotics. This makes the fact that we find differences in exposure to coding prior to formal schooling even more problematic, as the discrepancies seen in early childhood may build up in later years in terms of motivation, engagement, and interest. Taken together, the current research shines light on the positive finding that young children are engaging with coding at early ages, but it also identifies potential problem areas regarding the breadth of exposure and experience. It highlights the need to ensure that the divide between those with and without science capital does not widen, allowing all children the freedom to obtain digital literacy that will help foster a more advanced future.
... According to their own statements, they considered which of the procedures would lead to the result in a shorter way. In determining how to use as few computational steps as possible, students analyzed the problem, demonstrating the ability to think of higher order [39]. These students mastered the solution of congruences at a higher level of knowledge, such as understanding, because they were able to evaluate the suitability of using congruences to solve a given problem [40]. ...
The presented paper is devoted to the new teaching model of congruences of computer science students within the subject of discrete mathematics at universities. The main goal was to create a new model of teaching congruences on the basis of their connection with Diophantine equations and subsequently to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed model experimentally. The teaching of congruences was realized in two phases: acquisition of procedural knowledge and use of Diophantine equations to obtain conceptual knowledge of congruences. Experiments confirmed that conceptual understanding of congruences is positively related to increasing the procedural fluidity of congruence resolution. Research also demonstrated the suitability of using Diophantine equations to link congruences and equations. Among other things, the presented research has confirmed the justification of teaching mathematics in computer-oriented study programs.
... Consider coding (computer programming) as an example. Coding has become a new type of literacy in the digital age, which enables students to learn and develop higher and lower order thinking skills (Popat & Starkey, 2019). It was first introduced in schools in the 1960s with the intention of equipping students with intellectual structures that would enable them to learn throughout life and to prepare them for the future (Papert, 1980). ...
A hybrid model of curriculum that reflects cultural conflicts and fusion is aligned with the framework of ‘glocalisation’ as a balance and fusion of ‘globalisation’ and ‘localisation’, which has been proposed to decolonise the curriculum and promote culturally diverse perspectives and contributions (Bautista et al., 2021; Joseph & Ramani, 2012). With a rapidly increasing need to respond to a technological future, there is still much to learn about how technological innovation may play a part in reimagining and re-designing the ‘glocal’ curriculum for today’s children.
... Las habilidades en programación que un estudiante adquiere en su proceso de formación están calificadas como las competencias requeridas en el siglo XXI [2], lo que realza la importancia de aplicar un proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje que asegure la adquisición de competencias en el área de programación. ...
Los contenedores se han convertido es una estrategia ideal para acelerar el proceso de desarrollo de plataformas. Su importancia radica en la capacidad que tienen para separar una aplicación e interactuar con sus partes sin que la totalidad de la aplicación tenga que ser afectada. Los contenedores pueden compartir procesos entre varias aplicaciones, de manera muy similar al esquema propuesto por la arquitectura orientada a servicios. El objetivo de esta investigación fue definir una arquitectura para el despliegue automático de contenedores en contextos académicos, la verificación y validación de la arquitectura se realizó mediante la construcción de una plataforma que adapta los conceptos de la arquitectura y permite visualizar nivel a nivel cada uno de sus componentes. Se realizó un análisis bibliográfico sobre las arquitecturas propuestas para la gestión de contenedores, evidenciando fortalezas y debilidades. El resultado directo de esta investigación fue la propuesta arquitectónica para el despliegue de contenedores como una extensión de docker. El resultado indirecto fue la plataforma web para la verificación y validación de la arquitectura.
... In addition to this information, coding possesses a considerable amount of knowledge on CS. Thus, academicians support the idea that coding is a meaningful window of opportunity for CT to develop for students of all ages and backgrounds (Popat & Starkey, 2019). In other words, coding ability and CT are closely related (Wang et al., 2021). ...
Computational Thinking (CT) and the understanding of how programs are being executed is internationally acknowledging as a necessity for today's students and citizens of tomorrow. Despite the multifaceted nature of CT, the introduction of CT and associate concepts such as coding is regarded as developmental acceptable for preschool and kindergarten children. For a decade, there has been a focus on educational reform in the form of educational apps. For young children, an influx of mobile apps offering various interfaces and styles promote themselves as having educational value to introduce children aged 5–7 to essential CT, coding, and problem-solving skills. On the contrary, little is known about the educational value of these apps. The fast pace at which developers produce these apps and the breadth of the available apps have gone beyond what it is reasonable for researchers and experts in the domain to evaluate. This article presents a literature review on how the ScratchJr app affects young children's CT, coding, and general literacy skills. The literature review includes 18 studies. The main conclusion is that although ScratchJr is not a panacea, it seems to be a helpful app that positively affects children's CT and coding skills.
... 21st century skills, namely, problem solving, creativity, algorithmic thinking, and computational thinking that individuals need to be equipped with could be acquired through computer programming instruction [22,23]. Learning programming has always been a challenging subject in information technologies education. ...
... Malik and Coldwell-Neilson (2017) and Hsu et al. (2018) stress the importance of examining different learning strategies and analyzing how they relate to previously shown positive effects on computational thinking. Furthermore, Popat and Starkey (2019) state that exploring different teaching methods and identifying their effects on programming, as well as other educational outcomes, is an important topic for future research. Consequently, we chose to contribute to the existing knowledge by comparing two methods for integrating programming into physical computing. ...
Computer science is becoming an increasingly important part of primary and secondary education. This change is backed by a societal shift towards a digital economy. The European Commis- sion wants 100% of key public services to be online and 90% of small- and medium-sized businesses to reach at least a basic level of digital intensity. It is clear that the integration of computer science in education is important in order to reach these goals. Nevertheless, this is not a trivial task. There are many unknowns about how to do this effectively, moreover, these unknowns are distributed across multiple areas of policy and practice. In this dissertation, we identify some of these unknowns and formulate some possible solutions. We mainly focus on supporting teach- ing practice but also formulate insights which can be helpful for making policy decisions. Since the field of computing education is very broad, we focus on the integration of programming in a physical computing context for learners ages 10 to 14. To conduct research in this field, we first created a visual programming environment for physical systems. This environment is based on existing literature and is used as a tool throughout this work. It allows learners to build and program robots both in the real world and in simulation. This strong link between the physical and virtual word allows the environment to be used in many different learning contexts, allowing us to conduct a variety of in classroom experiments. Using the environment we created, we have shown that not all ways of integrating programming into a physical computing class are equally effective. Specifically, our results show that having learners create a program from scratch is preferable to having them find errors in existing programs. Our metrics indicate that finding errors in an existing program has more risk of causing ex- traneous cognitive load in learners. Cognitive load theory states that the human mind has a limited working memory. In order for effective learning to take place, the capacity of the working memory should not be exceeded. Even though fixing a program only required learners to change one element in the code, the act of understanding what the code does, applying error detection strategies, and deducing what they can do to fix the issue, causes more cognitive load than constructing a fully functional program from scratch. As a result, learners in the fix group get stuck more often, lose motivation more quickly, tend to use trial-and-error solution strategies more often, and score lower on programming tests. Since effective teaching not only depends on the teaching method but also on the teacher, we have developed methods for support- ing teachers in their efforts to integrate programming into their teaching. To identify the most pressing needs teachers have, we set up a qualitative experiment during one of the professional de- velopment programs we created. By observing and interviewing teachers, we identified two main challenges teachers encounter. 1) The ability and willingness to create, reuse and share edu- cational materials. 2) How to assess the coding ability of their learners especially in an open learning context. We aimed to address these issues by designing and developing different tools and techniques for supporting teachers. Our ef- forts include the design and implementation of a learning object repository, a tool for sharing learning content on the web, as well as a framework for the assessment of code. The learning object repository defines a unified way of creating and sharing educational content. It solves the issues of granularity, heterogene- ity, reuse, personalization, and sharing. We argue that having a uniform system for defining learning content is important to facilitate personalized learning. The assessment framework we developed can be used by teach- ers to get insight into the aspects of code that can be assessed, giving them a grip on how to give quality feedback. It focusses on feedback of visual programs to learners ages 12 to 14. The teachers for these age groups need the most support since they usually have to teach multiple subjects and are less of an expert in each of the topics they teach. To develop this framework, we identified the gap between the existing literature about the assessment of code and how teachers perform the assessment in practice. Consequently, its strength is the link between theory and practice. The framework consists of eight main categories: 1) functionality 2) readability 3) programming concepts 4) algo- rithmic thinking 5) testing and debugging 6) mathematical con- cepts 7) creativity 8) personal aspects. Each of these categories is then split up into concepts relevant in the context of visual programming. Comparing this framework to what teachers as- sess in practice has shown that teachers are mostly unaware of these categories. This often results in incomplete, inaccurate, or invalid feedback. Additionally, the range of concepts being considered by teachers seems to grow with teaching experience. Nevertheless, even more experienced teachers are often not fully aware of which exact concepts they are assessing. Finally, we describe a method to assist teachers with their assess- ment of code by visualizing the solution paths of learners. This requires techniques to extract educationally relevant informa- tion from code. Consequently, we developed different machine learning based techniques for extracting didactical information from code and for visualizing solution paths in our programming environment. Our system extracts structural and functional in- formation from programs and embeds it into a vector space. The structural information is extracted using a Gaussian vertex edge histogram kernel. This kernel defines the structural similarity between two abstract syntax trees which can be used to cluster similar programs together. To extract functional information, we executed the programs in a simulated environment and captured the internal program state at each time step. By transforming these state variations in time into both frequency and amplitude components, we are able to create a vector representing the func- tion of a program. These vectors can be used as input for several machine learning algorithms. This allows us to cluster similar programs together and create visualizations based on the similarity of solution paths. This proof of concept application lays the groundwork for automated feedback systems.
... Por su naturaleza, el formalismo del lenguaje de programación y la limitación de las reglas posibles configuran un entorno tecnológico donde se puede realizar una discusión formal de la resolución de problemas. aplicado a contextos educativos, es claro que el uso de entornos tecnológicos basados en programación en bloques influye en la adquisición de destrezas relacionadas con el pensamiento crítico, con la resolución de problemas, con las habilidades sociales y de autogestión, o con otros conocimientos académicos (Popat y Starkey, 2019). Por un lado, la simplicidad del interfaz hace que tanto las habilidades de inhibición como de control de decisiones se vean favorecidas en estos entornos tecnológicos de programación visual en bloques, potenciando así el trabajo cooperativo y la gestión de planes o estrategias de resolución (arfé et al., 2020;Fessakis et al., 2013). ...
Las nuevas directrices curriculares de enseñanzas mínimas para los niveles no universitarios, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional, han apuntado al pensamiento computacional como una de las habilidades imprescindibles del siglo XXI. Este trabajo aporta tres experiencias de aprendizaje basadas en entornos tecnológicos que permitirán desarrollar el pensamiento computacional en distintos niveles escolares a través de la robótica educativa, programación en bloques y DragonBox Algebra. Todas ellas, enlazadas con la competencia matemática en resolución de problemas y alineadas con la propuesta curricular de cada nivel educativo.
The new curricular guidelines for basic education for non-university levels, both nationally and internationally, have pointed to computational thinking as one of the essential skills for the 21st century. This work provides three learning experiences based on technological environments that allow the development of computational thinking at different school levels through educational robotics, block programming, and DragonBox Algebra. All three of these areas are linked to mathematical competence in problem solving and aligned with the curricular proposal of each educational level.
... Problem solving as a learning outcome -Consistent with the finding that computer programming is the primary way of learning CT (Lye & Koh, 2014), problem solving was identified as the core learning outcome in a review that investigated what students learn through EVERYDAY PROBLEM SOLVING 10 programming (Popat & Starkey, 2019). Problem solving in the reviewed studies was conceived either as the application of mathematical concepts to coding tasks or the enhancement of mathematical skills through programming. ...
The idea of computational thinking is underpinned by the belief that anyone can learn and use the underlying concepts of computer science to solve everyday problems. However, most studies on the topic have investigated the development of computational thinking through programming activities, which are cognitively demanding. There is a dearth of evidence on how computational thinking augments everyday problem solving when it is decontextualized from programming. In this study, we examined how computational thinking, when untangled from the haze of programming, is demonstrated in everyday problem solving, and investigated the features of such solvable problems. Using a multiple case study approach, we tracked how seven university students used computational thinking to solve the everyday problem of a route planning task as part of an 8‐week‐long Python programming course. Computational thinking practices are latent in everyday problems, and intentionally structuring everyday problems is valuable for discovering the applicability of computational thinking. Decomposition and abstraction are prominent computational thinking components used to simplify everyday problem solving. It is important to strike a balance between the correctness of algorithms and simplification of the process of everyday problem solving. Computational thinking is a problem solving skill. Computational thinking is different from programming. There is dearth of evidence on how computational thinking augments everyday problem solving. Computational thinking practices are latent in everyday problem solving. Intentional restructuring of problems is required to uncover how computational thinking applies in solving them. Decomposition and abstraction are critical in solving everyday problems. Computational thinking should be taught explicitly through everyday problems. Finding balance between the correctness of algorithm and simplification of the problem solving process is important.
... This is similar to what Spillane, Reiser et al. (2002) refer to as "prescribing an occasional activity" where the system of practices of the reform is missed. A meta study by Popat and Starkey (2019) emphasises the importance of learning goals and teaching methods when programming is used in teaching and learning. They state that deliberate teaching is necessary while learning mathematical problem solving through programming is necessary in order to "identify and correct misconceptions" (p. ...
This paper reports a study of Swedish curriculum documents for compulsory school in order to unfold how novel programming content is communicated to the main policy enactors, that is, the teachers. Specifically, the study focusses on: (1) arguments for why programming is relevant and for what purposes, (2) what programming knowledge that is specified and (3) what guidance the curriculum documents provide to help teachers realise the programming content in their teaching. Text analysis was used as method of analysis. Two conceptual frameworks were used during analysis to identify and classify arguments for computer science in compulsory education, and to identify types of programming knowledge. Results reveal that the curriculum documents are sparse on details about what programming knowledge entails. Instead, programming is mainly presented as an interdisciplinary tool to achieve other learning goals. Guidance is given mainly in the form of cautious suggestions on how the work can be organised and through broad explanations and examples of how programming can be useful. However, some important and difficult strategic decisions are left entirely to the teachers without any clear guidance. The programming message in its entirety is communicated through several texts from different subjects. Altogether, this may complicate teachers’ process of transforming the curriculum into teaching and learning activities. In turn, there is a risk of inequality amongst schools and that the programming experience for the children becomes fragmented, superficial, misses out on key points, or is omitted, in part or in whole.
... It appears the way forward is to recognize teachers' need to familiarize themselves with coding to allay their own fears and to offer meaningful support for students learning these skills. Education outcomes are affected by teachers who model supportive behaviours, resulting in greater communication and collaboration skills (Popat & Starkey, 2019). Long-lasting professional development opportunities can contribute to teachers' personal understanding and application of making principles in the classroom. ...
This article considers how documentation enrichesliteracieslearninginhighereducation, specifically in a graduate course designed for language teachers.Building on a one-year research study with graduate studentsata university inthe Atlantic regionof Canada, the authors demonstrate how participant-generated documentation, including cartography,presentsrelational understandings impactingliteracies. Specifically, the authors look at a case study of two teachers enrolled in a graduate literacycourse who crafted and designed digitalstories using Scratchand usedmultimodaldimensionsfrom music to animation and movement. Teachers’ documentation challenges the idea that making is solely a question of doing, and considers instead long-lasting processes that influence teacher practice and development.
... Although learning how to program the computer is a cognitively demanding task, it brings a host of well-established educational benefits such as facilitating cognitive development (Scherer et al., 2019), positive attitude, and confidence (Denner et al., 2019). Problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and self-management have been identified as the core 21 st century skills that students acquired when programming (Popat & Starkey, 2019). In the K-12 context, programming is not a new literacy. ...
Several instructional approaches have been advanced for learning programming. However, effective ways of engaging beginners in programming in K–12 are still unclear, especially among low socioeconomic status learners in technology-deprived learning environments. Understanding the learning path of novice programmers will bridge this gap and explain what constitutes an effective learning path for novice. Thirty-eight students from technology-deprived schools participated in a 10-h project-first constructionist learning. Using the Friedman test of repeated measures and Spearman’s rank correlation, trends in the students’ programming ability were evaluated. The findings showed that the students’ programming ability increased on the first day, remained stable throughout the intervention, and were not affected by either semantics or syntax of the Python programming language. However, the features of a program were inconclusive determinants of programming skills. The irregular patterns of programming concepts within and between the learners’ programming solutions suggest focusing on pedagogies that encourage project-first learning. A constructionist model of learning and the challenges educators may encounter amongst novice learners with low socioeconomic status are highlighted.
Coding (or computer programming) helps equip children with an intellectual structure that is valuable for their lifelong learning and development. The proliferation of innovative coding platforms, especially screen-free programmable robotics, has made it possible for coding to be integrated into early childhood education (ECE). However, how the coding curriculum has been designed and used in ECE settings, as well as its effectiveness, is understudied. This scoping review evaluates, synthesizes, and displays 20 studies on coding curriculum in early childhood published in 2012–2021, involving curriculum design, coding platforms, pedagogical approaches, research methods, and research findings. The review contributes to a mapping of existing work focusing on coding curricula in early childhood, thus demystifying and clarifying the characteristics and effectiveness of these intervention programs. Its findings also shed light on the improvement mechanism and solutions of early computing education in both quantity and quality.
Concerns regarding the high demand for skilled personnel in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields underline the importance of developing advanced information technology (IT) and programming skills among job candidates. In the past 10 years, computer programming has regained considerable attention because of rapid developments in computer programming technology. Advocates claim that computer programming cultivates other skills, including problem solving, logical thinking, and creativity. Education systems worldwide are developing courses to instruct students in programming and computational thinking. Although the importance of computer programming has been widely recognized, the systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching methods and conditions that promote the learning of programming knowledge and skills has received little scholarly attention. This study thus investigated the moderating roles of learners’ construal levels and their team role ambiguity in the context of group investigation in junior high school programing courses. In this study, junior high school students were divided into pairs to develop Arduino projects. Students applied programming abilities to complete a task involving the use of Arduino boards to simulate the operation of traffic lights. Major research findings indicate that construal levels play a significant role in moderating the relationship between programming ability and learning outcome; however, role ambiguity does not significantly affect this relationship. Theoretical implications are discussed, and managerial implications are suggested.
Teaching computational thinking (CT) has become a priority for educators and policymakers tasked with educating and training students for future jobs which are predicted to be increasingly automated. Recent research on effective instructional interventions for developing computational thinking skills, including algorithmic and critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and cooperativity, suggests that teaching and learning CT can improve student academic performance. In fact, the extant literature is quite sanguine about the topic of CT. However, few studies have attempted to establish a relationship between CT skills and academic performance.
In the present cross-sectional study, we employ path analysis to model the structural relationship between self-reported CT skills and academic performance of a sample of 81 computer science undergraduates enrolled at a Southwestern American university. We found few direct relationships between CT skills and academic performance. We only find a significant positive relationship between creativity and academic performance and a significant negative relationship between cooperativity and academic performance. Our findings are surprising considering the abundant research promoting computational thinking as a key component of 21st century skills. The findings call for further in-depth analysis of computational thinking and the influence on students’ learning and learning outcomes. We discuss our results with respect to recent educational mandates for including CT and instructional alignment in school curricula. Our findings contribute to the existing discussion by helping to clarify the relationship between CT skills and academic performance in higher education.
The application of sense-reason-act (SRA) programming in contemporary education can ensure the development of computational thinking (CT) at a more advanced level. SRA-programming has been identified as an instrumental way of thinking for learning to program robots and encourages the development of the more complex concepts of programming. Visual programming environments are diverse in appearance and prove to be an excellent way to teach pupils the basic ideas of programming. It is important to investigate whether the type of output has a characteristic influence on the level of development of CT in visual programming environments. In this research, we therefore explore whether characteristic differences in the development of CT can be measured when SRA-programming is applied in a visual programming environment with an on-screen output or a tangible output. It was expected that the observed effect of pupils' programming actions through the application of SRA would show that the type of output influences the understanding of complex programming concepts at a higher level. Our results indicate that SRA-programming with visual, on-screen output yields a significant increase in the development of CT, as opposed to SRA-programming with a tangible output. The development of complex programming concepts can also be demonstrated.
Die Beziehung von Mathematik und Informatik ist seit Langem in der didaktischen Diskussion. Ursprünglich war es eine zentrale Frage, ob es ein eigenständiges Fach Informatik in der Schule geben sollte oder ob entsprechende Anteile in den Mathematikunterricht integriert werden können. Diese Diskussion ist weitgehend mit der Etablierung eines eigenständigen Schulfachs Informatik entschieden.
Increasingly, students training in the biological sciences depend on a proper grounding in biological statistics, data science and experimental design. As biological datasets increase in size and complexity, transparent data management and analytical methods are essential skills for undergraduate biologists. We propose that using the software R and RStudio are effective tools to train first- and second-year undergraduate students in data visualization and foundational statistical analyses. Here, we present the redesigned laboratory curriculum for our Experimental Design and Statistics course, a required course for all first- or second-year biology majors at Lawrence University, a small liberal arts institution in northeast Wisconsin. We include an example 10-week syllabus and eight laboratory exercises (as supplementary materials) for undergraduate institutions that aim to introduce and guide students through acquiring a basic understanding of biostatistical analyses and skills using R and RStudio. We also provide a flexible framework and examples that are easily modifiable and cover the essential biostatistics and data science skills needed for biology undergraduates. Finally, we discuss the potential pitfalls and obstacles as well as the intrinsic benefits and expected outcomes of our laboratories.
Interest in computational thinking (CT) in the scientific community has increased significantly in the last 4 years, as evidenced by the numerous systematic reviews carried out. However, there is a lack of reviews that update the emerging conceptualization of CT and which also examine the roles of the school curriculum and teachers in the face of CT. A systematic literature review (SLR) consists of a collection of research conducted according to previous criteria with the aim of answering research questions with validity and quality. For this reason, the PRISMA-ScR statement was followed. Articles published in scientific journals, from Scopus and WoS, between January 2018 and August 2021 were included, in the English or Spanish language. The initial search resulted in 492 articles, to which the inclusion-exclusion criteria were applied. The final sample of texts for the present systematic review was n = 145. The texts were analyzed from three perspectives: conceptual, documentary and pedagogical. Thus, a renewal of previous literature reviews was carried out, updating the situation with research from recent years and new data, obtained to contribute to the collective intelligence on methodological strategies (80% of the sample was divided into “plugged” and “unplugged”); educational (more than 50% studied CT evaluation); and resources, including a collection of more than 119 educational resources.
Computational thinking (CT) is an important and essential skill for human beings to master in the 21st century. Although CT has received wide attention since this concept was proposed, the current theoretical models have not well defined the complex relations between CT and other cognitive abilities for young children. To provide insight into this gap, the current study proposed a model in which we hypothesized that CT was significantly related to arithmetic fluency that is viewed as an important domain of mathematics. Additionally, arithmetic fluency was predicted to mediate the relations of CT to other cognitive abilities, including reasoning and creativity. This study tested such direct and indirect relations in children aged 5-6 years. Consistent with previous studies on older age groups, the results showed that CT and arithmetic fluency were significantly related to each other and both were significantly related to reasoning ability and creative thinking as well. Moreover, this study, for the first time, indicated that arithmetic fluency totally mediated the relation between CT and reasoning ability, suggesting that these concepts share conceptual commonalities, such as the cognitive processes related to mathematics or/and abstraction; in contrast, arithmetic fluency did not mediate the relation between CT and creative thinking, suggesting that gaining CT skill may exert direct positive effect on the development of creativity. Therefore, despite the root in computer science, CT is associated with many cognitive and learning abilities in other domains, supporting the importance of including CT into early school education.
In recent years, computer programming has reappeared in school curricula with the aim of transmitting knowledge and skills beyond the simple ability to code. However, there are different ways of teaching this subject and very few experimental studies compare plugged-in and unplugged programming learning. The purpose of this study is to highlight the impact of plugged-in or unplugged learning on students' performance and subjective experience. To this end, we designed an experimental study with 217 primary school students divided into two groups and we measured their knowledge of computational concepts, ability to solve algorithmic problem, motivation toward the instruction, self-belief and attitude toward science. The programming sessions were designed to be similar between the two conditions, only the tools were different. Computers and Scratch software were used in the plugged-in group while the unplugged group used paper instructions, pictures, figurines and body movements instead. The results show better learning performance in the plugged-in group. Furthermore, although motivation dropped slightly in both groups, this drop was only significant in the unplugged condition. Gender also seems to be an important factor, as girls exhibit a lower post-test motivation and a lower willingness to pursue their practice in programming outside the school context. However, this effect on motivation was only observable in the plugged-in group which suggests that educational programming software may have a positive but gendered motivational impact.
Computational thinking (CT) has acquired the status of a necessary 21st-century skill and is currently being introduced in school curricula around the world, despite a lack of consensus about what it entails. The aims of this review are to provide an overview of the existing literature on CT activities in primary mathematics education, and to articulate how it is integrated into the teaching and learning of primary mathematics. This systematic review presents and analyses the findings of 10 empirical studies, revealing a recent increased focus on the inclusion of CT in primary mathematics classrooms, as most studies are published around 2020. Our findings indicate two categories of such activities, one focusing on skills (such as mainly sequencing, looping, conditionals, debugging, decomposition, and abstraction) and one on process-oriented activities (communication, creativity, exploration, and engagement). Furthermore, we found that, while there are studies reporting on mathematics being taught directly through CT activities (full integration), in most studies, the mathematics content was emphasised, with CT built in as a way for students to demonstrate their understanding of mathematics concepts (partial integration). This review identifies current gaps in the field and the need to investigate further such process-oriented activities, the use of these activities in accelerated mathematics, and the need for different methodological approaches in primary mathematics.
Dijital dünyanın giderek büyüdüğü günümüzde bilgisayarlar ve mobil cihazlar daha kolay ulaşabildiğimiz, günlük yaşantımızın vazgeçilmez öğeleri haline gelmişlerdir. Bu gelişim zaman içerisinde toplumda ekonomik ve sosyal yaşamda derin etkiler yaratmıştır. Bu gelişimin bir sonucu olarak bugün; her yaştaki bireyin teknolojideki gelişmelere paralel olarak bazı temel bilgisayar becerilerine sahip olması beklenmektedir. Geleceğe hazırladığımız öğrencileri, problemleri çözmek için teknolojiyi kullanma yetkinliğine sahip bireyler olarak hazırlamalıyız.
Bu araştırmanın amacı ortaokul 8. Sınıf öğrencilerinin bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerilerine yönelik öz yeterlik algı düzeylerini belirlemek ve bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerisine yönelik öz yeterlik algı düzeylerini çeşitli değişkenler açısından incelemektir. Araştırmalar bilgi işlemsel düşünmede olumlu tutum ve algının önemli olduğunu ve insanların bilgisayar bilimi hakkında daha fazla öğrenme isteklerinin oluşması gerektiği üzerinde durmaktadır. Çalışmada ayrıca öğrencilerin; Matematik, Fen ve Teknoloji, İngilizce, T.C. İnkılap Tarihi ve Atatürkçülük derslerindeki başarı notları ile bilgi işlemsel düşünme öz yeterlik algıları arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Bu sayede ortaokul öğrencileri için bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerilerine yönelik öz yeterlik algılarının hangi alan türündeki derslerdeki başarılarıyla ilişkili olduğu belirlenecektir.
Araştırma nicel tarama modelinde ve tekil tarama deseninde yürütülmüştür. Gülbahar, Kalelioğlu ve Kert(2018) tarafından geliştirilen ortaokul öğrencilerine yönelik Bilgi İşlemsel Düşünme Becerilerine Yönelik Öz Yeterlik Algı Ölçeği (BİDBÖA) kullanılmıştır. 2018-2019 eğitim-öğretim yılında İzmir ilinde öğrenim gören 1147 kız ve 1100 erkek olmak üzere, toplam 2247 ortaokul 8.sınıf öğrencisi araştırmanın örneklemini oluşturmaktadır. Yapılan analizler sonucu ortaokul 8. sınıf öğrencilerinin bilgi işlemsel düşünme becerilerine yönelik öz yeterlik algı puan ortalaması, 108 toplam ölçek puanı üzerinden 80,01 puan olarak ortalamanın üzerinde bulunmuştur. Katılımcıların cinsiyet değişkenine göre öz yeterlik algılarının kız öğrenciler lehine farklılaştığı tespit edilmiştir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Bilgi İşlemsel Düşünme, Öz Yeterlik
**********************ESP - SUMARIO - Este trabajo introduce las reacciones de los educadores desde su práctica profesional ante la injusticia generada por las prácticas y narrativas de la datificación. Se presenta un enfoque de trabajo reflexivo e interpretativo basado en los principios de la hermenéutica, implementado dentro de una serie de talleres (12) con la participación de 298 educadores. A partir de la síntesis interpretativa se observa que: A) si bien las y los educadores están desarrollando formas de sensibilidad y atención al problema de la datificación, sienten que sus grados de libertad están limitados. De manera subordinada al primer efecto, aparece que B) en algunos casos se abandonan a sufrir pasivamente las problemáticas de la datificación; C) en otros empuñan sus habilidades técnicas y tecnológicas para "hackear el algoritmo". En cualquiera de estas situaciones, se plantea la necesidad de organizar el quehacer educativo más allá de la competencia tecnológica, para impulsar antagonismos contra-hegemónicos como vía para construir nuevos contextos de justicia de datos, y por lo tanto, justicia social.
***************************ENG - ABSTRACT - This work introduces educators' reactions from their professional practice to the injustice generated by the practices and narratives of datafication. A reflective and interpretive work approach based on the principles of hermeneutics is presented, implemented within a series of workshops (12) with the participation of 298 educators. From the interpretive synthesis it is observed that: A) although educators are developing forms of sensibility and attention to the problem of datafication, they feel that their degrees of freedom are limited. In a subordinate way to the first effect, it appears that B) in some cases, they abandon themselves to suffer the problems of datafication passively; C) in others, they wield their technical and technological skills to "hack the algorithm". In any of these situations, the need arises to organise the educational work beyond technological competence, to promote counter-hegemonic antagonisms as a way to build new contexts of data justice, and therefore, social justice.
In this paper we investigate whether computer programming has an impact on high school student’s reasoning skills, problem solving and self-efficacy in Mathematics. The quasi-experimental design was adopted to implement the study. The sample of the research comprised 66 high school students separated into two groups, the experimental and the control group according to their educational orientation. The research findings indicate that there is a significant difference in the reasoning skills of students that participated in the “programming course” compared to students that did not. Moreover, the self-efficacy indicator of students that participated in the experimental group showed a significant difference from students in the control group. The results however, failed to support the hypothesis that computer programming significantly enhances student’s problem solving skills.
Recent government moves in many countries have seen coding included in school curricula, or promoted as part of computing, mathematics or science programmes. While these moves have generally been associated with a need to engage more young people in technology study, research has hinted at possible benefits from learning to program including fostering general thinking skills. However, little research has been carried out exploring these ideas. This study analysed data collected while 5- and 6-year-old students in a New Zealand primary school were using Scratch Jnr. to learn about basic shapes, as part of a numeracy topic. Analysis combined Brennan and Resnick's (2012) computational thinking skills framework and Krathwohl's (2002) revision of Bloom's Taxonomy to evaluate any role general thinking skills played in these students' coding work. Results suggest including basic coding in primary curricula provides teachers with an effective means of exercising their students' general and higher order thinking skills. They build on Brennan and Resnick's (2012) framework by including conceptualization as an important element in students' computational work and highlight the role of predictive thinking in debugging code. Findings support historical arguments that more needs to be done to investigate students' cognitive processes when undertaking computational work.
[Full text freely available at http://www.informingscience.org/Publications/3521]
The introduction of computer programming in K-12 has become mainstream in the last years, as countries around the world are making coding part of their curriculum. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical studies that investigate how learning to program at an early age affects other school subjects. In this regard, this paper compares three quasi-experimental research designs conducted in three different schools (n=129 students from 2nd and 6th grade), in order to assess the impact of introducing programming with Scratch at different stages and in several subjects. While both 6th grade experimental groups working with coding activities showed a statistically significant improvement in terms of academic performance, this was not the case in the 2nd grade classroom. Notable disparity was also found regarding the subject in which the programming activities were included, as in social studies the effect size was double that in mathematics.
In this paper we have examined the position and roles of Computer Science in curricula in the light of recent calls for curriculum change and we have proposed principles and issues to consider in curriculum design as well as identifying priority areas for further research. The paper is based on discussions within and beyond the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Education Community since 2012 as well as an analysis of curriculum developments in five different countries. Emerging themes have been discussed with reference to important perspectives from curriculum theory including “powerful knowledge” as a key element of entitlement and management of the growth of expertise. Based on this analysis we have identified areas of consensus as well as constraints, risks and issues that are still subject to controversy. There is an emerging consensus of the importance of Computer Science and the nature of its “powerful knowledge”. Furthermore current understanding of the opportunities and benefits for starting to learn Computer Science early in primary schools has identified this early start as an entitlement and equity issue. There is a strong consensus that teacher professional development in Computer Science Education is critical for supporting curriculum change and is currently a major challenge in many countries. Other key issues include understanding how the growth of expertise affects potential structure and sequencing in the curriculum and the balance of content. Further considerations include how new technological opportunities interact with pedagogical approaches and can provide new potential for the growth of expertise.
Students in secondary education strive hard enough to understand basic programming concepts. With all that is known regarding the benefits of programming, little is the published evidence showing how high school students can learn basic programming concepts following innovative instructional formats correctly with the respect to gain/enhance their computational thinking skills. This distinction has caused lack of their motivation and interest in Computer Science courses. This case study presents the opinions of twenty-eight (n = 28) high school students who participated voluntarily in a 3D-game-like environment created in Second Life. This environment was combined with the 2D programming environment of Scratch4SL for the implementation of programming concepts (i.e. sequence and concurrent programming commands) in a blended instructional format. An instructional framework based on Papert's theory of Constructionism to assist students how to coordinate or manage better the learning material in collaborative practice-based learning activities is also proposed. By conducting a mixed-method research, before and after finishing several learning tasks, students’ participation in focus group (qualitative data) and their motivation based on their experiences (quantitative data) are measured. Findings indicated that an instructional design framework based on Constructionism for acquiring or empowering students’ social, cognitive, higher order and computational thinking skills is meaningful. Educational implications and recommendations for future research are also discussed.
Various aspects of computational thinking, which builds on the power and limits of computing processes, whether they are executed by a human or by a machine, are discussed. Computational methods and models are helping to solve problems, design systems, and understand human behavior, by drawing on concepts fundamental to computer science (CS). Computational thinking (CT) is using abstraction and decomposition when attacking a large complex task or designing a large complex systems. CT is the way of thinking in terms of prevention, protection, and recovery from worst-case scenarios through redundancy, damage containment, and error correction. CT is using heuristic reasoning to discover a solution and using massive amount of data to speed up computation. CT is a futuristic vision to guide computer science educators, researchers, and practitioners to change society's image of the computer science field.
Computer programming is perceived as an important competence for the development of problem solving skills in addition to logical reasoning. Hence, its integration throughout all educational levels, as well as the early ages, is considered valuable and research studies are carried out to explore the phenomenon in more detail. In light of these facts, this study is an exploratory effort to investigate the effect of Scratch programming on 5th grade primary school students' prob� lem solving skills. Moreover, the researchers wondered what 5th grade primary school students think about programming. This study was carried out in an explanatory sequential mixed methods design with the participation of 49 primary school students. According to the quantitative results, programming in Scratch platform did not cause any significant differences in the problem solving skills of the primary school students. There is only a non-significant increase in the mean of the fac� tor of " self-confidence in their problem solving ability " . When the thoughts of the primary students were considered, it can be clearly stated that all the students liked programming and wanted to improve their programming. Finally, most of the students found the Scratch platform easy to use. Keywords: programming and programming languages� elementary education� improving class� programming and programming languages� elementary education� improving class� room teaching.
One of the biggest problems in teaching Mathematics is the motivation of students (Kloosterman, 1997; Lambić, 2008). The core
of this problem is insufficient comprehension of reasons by students, why they want to learn Mathematics and in which way
they could apply acquired knowledge of Mathematics (Southwell, 1994; Musto, 2008). Since programming is closely connected
to Mathematics, this try has been compiled to make Mathematics closer to students with a help of working with software C++
Builder. The students from higher grades of elementary schools, high school students and university students have been participating
in this project. Without previous knowledge of programming languages, the students were given tasks to create a certain computer
program. The students have been making programs by inventing algorithms and setting visual components of the program, while
the teacher, on their request, has been doing programming as part of the work. At the end of the project, the students have
shown much better attitude towards the Mathematics class than before, and they have also obtained certain skills and knowledge
in the programming field.
A comprehensive and practical textbook on research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed.
Jeannette Wing’s influential article on computational thinking 6 years ago argued for adding this new competency to every child’s analytical ability as a vital ingredient of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning. What is computational thinking? Why did this article resonate with so many and serve as a rallying cry for educators, education researchers, and policy makers? How have they interpreted Wing’s definition, and what advances have been made since Wing’s article was published? This article frames the current state of discourse on computational thinking in K–12 education by examining mostly recently published academic literature that uses Wing’s article as a springboard, identifies gaps in research, and articulates priorities for future inquiries.
We are witnessing a remarkable comeback of programming. Current initiatives to promote computational thinking and to broaden participation in computing signal a renewed interest to bring programming back into K-12 schools and help develop children as producers and not simply consumers of digital media. This essay explores the re-emergence of programming in K-12 schools, addressing three questions in particular: First, what is the role of programming in facilitating children’s learning with digital media? Second, how can schools play a more prominent role in supporting such coded production as a veritable new literacy for the 21st century? Third, what are some of the systemic equity issues of access and participation that will need to be addressed? Given these questions facing schools as well as the wider economic viability of this country, it is crucial that we understand the importance of programming as a means to process and communicate information, how it relates to developing minds through computational thinking, and why computational participation as an extension of such thinking represents our best chance to teach programming in schools.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is difficult to apply consistently to assessment tasks in introductory programming courses. The Bloom taxonomy is a valuable tool that could enable analysis and discussion of programming assessment if it could be interpreted consistently. We discuss each of the Bloom classification categories and provide a consistent interpretation with concrete exemplars that will allow computer science educators to utilise Bloom’s Taxonomy for programming assessment. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to help design examinations could greatly improve the quality of assessment in introductory programming
courses.
Full test available from: http://crpit.com/confpapers/CRPITV78Thompson.pdf
Six key questions will help readers to assess qualitative research
Digital technology offers new possibilities for children to play, express themselves, learn, and communicate. A recent development in online practice is a shift toward youth engaged in computer programming online communities. Programming is argued to be the new literacy of the millennium. In this article, I examine the use of Scratch, an online programming community, as a means to support digital literacy for early adolescent gifted, talented, and creative students. In addition, I share the experiences of an early adolescent gifted student with Scratch and consider the use of Scratch to promote interdisciplinary curricular concepts.
Background:
Previous research found that pre-teenage ability to derive arbitrary 'same', 'opposite', 'more', and 'less' relations correlated with measured intelligence quotient (IQ) and that training this derived relational responding (DRR) skill produced substantial IQ rises.
Aims:
This study extended previous work by comparing the effects of DRR training (using strengthening mental abilities with relational training [SMART], an automated online training protocol) with the effects of a similar quantity of training in 'Scratch' computer coding.
Sample:
Twenty-eight children (13 girls) aged 10-11 (M = 10.34) participated, all members of the same class in a primary school in Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Methods:
Participants were tested before and after training for DRR ability as well as on standardized tests of IQ and academic attainment. Training time was limited to 29 hrs over two academic semesters in twice-weekly 1-hr instalments.
Results:
Significant improvements were seen in measures of overall intellectual performance; in digit span and letter/number sequencing; and in academic attainment, including spelling, reading, and numerical operations, in the SMART/DRR group alone, and there was significantly more improvement on these measures in the SMART/DRR group than in the Scratch group.
Conclusions:
These findings extend the evidence that training DRR can produce improvements in intellectual and academic ability.
Several authors and studies highlight the benefits of the integration of Computer Science into K-12 education. Applications such as Scratch have been demonstrated to be effective in educational environments. The aim of this study is to assess the use of a Visual Programming Language using Scratch in classroom practice, analyzing the outcomes and attitudes of 107 primary school students from 5th to 6th grade in five different schools in Spain. The intervention takes place in two academic years analyzing the practice of integrating coding and visual blocks programming in sciences and arts. The “Computational concepts and computational practices” dimension details a quasi-experimental approach, which showed significant improvement regarding learning programming concepts, logic, and computational practices with an active approach. The “Learning processes and coding in primary education” dimension analyzes the practice of the experimental group through questionnaires and structured observation. In this pedagogical design, students interact and create their own content related to curricular areas with several advantages, such as motivation, fun, commitment, and enthusiasm, showing improvements related to computational thinking and computational practices. Understanding of computational concepts through an active approach, Project Based Learning, usefulness, motivation, and commitment underline the importance and effectiveness of implementing a Visual Programming Language from active methodologies in primary education. Due to the aforementioned benefits and positive results obtained in this research, it is recommended to implement a Visual Programming Language in educational settings in 5th and 6th grade in primary education through a cross-curricular implementation.
The purpose of this study was to investigate transfer effects of a high school BASIC programming course on skills in mathematical modeling, procedural comprehension, and verbal problem solution. The sample consisted of 44 BASIC students, 44 computer literacy students, and 44 students who had no computer training. Results indicated no significant differences in scores among groups for mathematical modeling or procedural comprehension; however, the BASIC group scored significantly higher than the other two groups on verbal problem solution (p <.01). Neither the gender x treatment interaction nor gender alone was found to be a significant source of score variance. Although the variance caused by student grade level was not significant, a significant interaction was found between group membership and grade level with respect to verbal problems (p <.02). Implications for computer education are offered.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between BASIC programming language instruction and high school students’ problem solving skills and computer anxiety. Specific attention was placed on five critical issues concerning this area of research: (a) sufficient attention to problem solving theory, (b) issues related to the programming treatment, (c) the programming language selected and the method of instruction, (d) system-related issues, and (e) the selection of an appropriate sample. Twenty-two high school students participated in a 15-week computer treatment, 11 of whom received BASIC instruction and the other 11 received general Computer Literacy instruction. Students in the BASIC treatment group showed a significant increase in their problem solving ability, whereas the students in the Computer Literacy treatment did not. Although both groups did show a significant decrease in computer anxiety, there was no significant difference between the groups. There were also significant positive relationships between computer performance and problem solving for the BASIC group. These results are discussed in terms of designing programming/problem solving research, as well as general curricular issues related to programming instruction.
Programming is more than just coding, for, it exposes students to computational thinking which involves problem-solving using computer science concepts like abstraction and decomposition. Even for non-computing majors, computational thinking is applicable and useful in their daily lives. The three dimensions of computational thinking are computational concepts, computational practices and computational perspectives. In recent years, the availability of free and user-friendly programming languages has fuelled the interest of researchers and educators to explore how computational thinking can be introduced in K-12 contexts. Through an analysis of 27 available intervention studies, this paper presents the current trends of empirical research in the development of computational thinking through programming and suggests possible research and instructional implications. From the review, we propose that more K-12 intervention studies centering on computational practices and computational perspectives could be conducted in the regular classroom. To better examine these two dimensions, students could be asked to verbalize their thought process using think aloud protocol while programming and their on-screen programming activity could be captured and analyzed. Predetermined categories based on both past and recent programming studies could be used to guide the analysis of the qualitative data. As for the instructional implication, it is proposed that a constructionism-based problem-solving learning environment, with information processing, scaffolding and reflection activities, could be designed to foster computational practices and computational perspectives.
Computer programming is considered an important competence for the development of higher-order thinking in addition to algorithmic problem solving skills. Its horizontal integration throughout all educational levels is considered worthwhile and attracts the attention of researchers. Towards this direction, an exploratory case study is presented concerning dimensions of problem solving using computer programming by 5–6 years old kindergarten children. After a short introductory experiential game the children were involved in solving a series of analogous computer programming problems, using a Logo-based environment on an Interactive White Board. The intervention was designed as a part of the structured learning activities of the kindergarten which are teacher-guided and are conducted in a whole-class social mode. The observation of the video recording of the intervention along with the analysis of teacher's interview and the researcher's notes allow for a realistic evaluation of the feasibility, the appropriateness and the learning value of integrating computer programming in such a context. The research evidence supports the view that children enjoyed the engaging learning activities and had opportunities to develop mathematical concepts, problem solving and social skills. Interesting results about children learning, difficulties, interactions, problem solving strategies and the teacher's role are reported. The study also provides proposals for the design of future research.
This paper provides an historical and empirical critique of the claim that learning to program will promote the development of general higher mental functions. A developmental perspective on learning to program is provided which incorporates cognitive science studies of mental activities involved in programming, and highlights the importance of programming contexts, instructional contexts, and a student's relevant background knowledge and reasoning skills for the task of learning to program. The following topics are discussed: claims for cognitive effects of learning to program; the developmental role of contexts in learning to program; the programming environment; the instructional environment; what constitutes skilled programming; levels of programming skill development; cognitive constraints on learning to program; and evidence for cognitive effects of programming. Types of transfer outcomes expected from each of the different levels of programming skill development are described, and a concluding statement and a 14-page list of references are included. (Author/THC)
Young people interact with games, animations, and simulations all of the time. But few of them are able to create interactive media. The obstacle: traditional programming languages are too difficult to learn and understand. This panel brings together a group of researchers, developers, and educators who are aiming to democratize the activity of programming. They are developing a new generation of programming environments that enable children and teens to create their own interactive games, stories, animations, and simulations. Panelists will discuss and critique their programming environments, then set up interactive demonstration stations for focused exploration and small-group discussion. Audience members will also have the opportunity to download the environments onto their own laptops, so that they can experiment in greater depth.
Formal mathematical methods remain, for most high school students, mysterious, artificial and not a part of their regular intuitive thinking. The authors develop some themes that could lead to a radically new approach. According to this thesis, the teaching of programming languages as a regular part of academic progress can contribute effectively to reduce formal barriers. This education can also be used to enable pupils to access an accurate understanding of some key mathematical concepts. In the field of heuristic knowledge for technical problem solving, experience of programming is no less valuable: it lends itself to promote a discussion of relations between formal procedures and the comprehension of intuitive problem solving and provides examples for the development of heuristic precepts (formulating a plan, subdividing the complexities, etc.). The knowledge gained in programming can also be used for the discussion of concepts and problems of classical mathematics. Finally, it can also facilitate the expansion of mathematical culture to topics in biological and physical sciences, linguistics, etc. The authors describe a programming language called 'Logo' adapted to objectify an enduring framework of mathematical experimentation.
Mitchel Resnick's book is one of the very few in the field of computing with an interdisciplinary discourse that can reach beyond the technical community to philsoophers, psychologists, and historians and sociologists of science. -- Sherry Turkle, Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Resnick's work provides a rare glimpse of what I am sure will become a new paradigm for research in education." -- Seymour Papert How does a bird flock...
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