Pair programming (PP) can help improve students' computational thinking (CT), but the trajectory of CT skills and the differences between high-scoring and low-scoring students in PP are unknown and need further exploration. In this study, a total of 32 fifth graders worked on Scratch tasks in 16 pairs. The group discourse of three learning topics…

Computer programming is regarded as an important skill for the future. However, many K-12 students face challenges and difficulties in learning traditional text-based programming. Block-based visual programming (BVP) can reduce the difficulty of learning programming and is seen as a potential programming education tool. Nevertheless, the effects…

The integration of visual programming in early formal education has been found to promote computational thinking of students. Teachers' intuitive perspectives about optimal learning processes -- "folk psychology" -- impact their perspectives about teaching "folk pedagogy" and play a significant role in integrating educational…

Computer programming provides a framework for interdisciplinary learning in sciences, arts and languages. However, increasing integration of programming in K--12 shows that the block-based and text-based dichotomy of programming environments does not reflect the spectrum of their affordance. Hence, educators are confronted with a fundamental…

The importance of developing computational thinking (CT) skills has created many practices and research. A significant amount of research exists in the literature on CT and its related skills, yet the rareness of research studies focusing on both quantitative and qualitative evaluations of students' CT skills in real school settings is remarkable.…

This study critically reviews sixteen empirical studies that investigate the various difficulties that primary school students encounter while learning programming through educational games. Specifically, the challenges that students face in understanding basic programming concepts and the game elements that contribute to these difficulties, as…

In this study, an interactive programming learning environment was built with two types of error prompt functions: 1) the key prompt and 2) step-by-step prompt. A quasi-experimental study was conducted for five weeks, in which 75 sixth grade students from disadvantaged learning environments in Taipei, Taiwan, were divided into three groups: 1) the…

This study focuses on students' self-assessment during their learning process related to computer programming concepts, taking into account challenges and obstacles both teachers and students face, with the aim to contribute to the development of guiding principles and practices and enhance the teaching process of computer programming in primary…

As technology-enhanced children's learning has gained wide attention, programmable robots have been gradually introduced in early childhood education. Hence, it would be valuable to understand how young children perceive robot programming learning. Draw-a-picture technique is an ideal method to elicit ideas, thoughts, and feelings for children…

Today, in the era of robotics, different types of educational robots have been used extensively in school classrooms to facilitate teaching activities related to a variety of computer science concepts. Numerous studies have been performed that attempt to examine the effects of using tangible interfaces to enhance collaborative learning…

Computer programming for young children has grown in popularity among both educators and product developers, but still relatively little is known about what skills children are developing when they code. This study investigated N = 57 Kindergarten through second grade children's performance on a programming assessment after engaging in a 6-week…

This research focuses on student-robot interaction in the learning environment of robotics education (RE) and attempts to explore how it cultivates students' computational thinking (CT). Different from child-robot interactions as investigated in the social robot field, student-robot (S-R) interactions focus mainly on the process of interaction…

Traditionally, various meanings of "10" are systematically ignored in early childhood curriculum and children's understanding of numbers is restricted within the solitary mapping between the symbol "10" and quantity concept of "ten." This may be problematic for other ways that mathematics is used, both in modern life…

Television, like other media, can work as a platform for promoting learning. This article illustrates the value of multimodal discourse analysis for evaluating the potential of a children's television show as a vehicle for fostering knowledge and skills in a specific subject area. Drawing on social semiotic principles and systemic functional genre…

In the last few years, programming, computational thinking, and robotics are more frequently integrated into elementary education. This integration can be done in many different ways. However, it is still unclear which teaching methods work in which situations. To provide some clarity in this area, we compared two methods of integrating…