As elementary students begin to program using tangible blocks, they must coordinate their use of counting with the movements, directions, and numbers they use to move a character. In our study, we analyzed 13 first graders' first attempts at coordinating these elements when playing a programming game on the iPad that used tangible programming…

Background and context: Despite the growing importance of computer science (CS) education, high-quality CS curricula for students in kindergarten to lower elementary grades are lacking. It is also unclear how students from underrepresented groups such as female students, students from low socioeconomic status, and students with disability respond…

Computational thinking (CT) has emerged as a key topic of interest in K-12 education. Children that are exposed at an early age to STEM curriculum, such as computer programming and computational thinking, demonstrate fewer obstacles entering technical fields. Increased knowledge of programming and computation in early childhood is also associated…

The aim of this study was to explore how the Coding as Another Language (CAL) curriculum, developed by Boston College's DevTech Research Group and utilizing the ScratchJr app, impacted students' computational thinking, coding skills, and reading comprehension. To accomplish this, the research team randomly assigned thirteen schools in a…

Developing computational thinking (CT) skills at an early age can help develop literacy, science, and mathematics skills; however, CT instruction in grades K-2 remains limited. This study examined the perceptions of 45 K-2 teachers from 30 school districts before and after a CT professional development (PD) experience. The PD included two online…

Learning coding during early childhood is an effective way for children to practice computational thinking. Aspects of children's motivation can increase the likelihood that children approach computational thinking activities with enthusiasm and deep engagement. Gender inequities may interfere with children's readiness to take advantage of…

There is a need for developmentally appropriate Computational Thinking (CT) assessments that can be implemented in early childhood classrooms. We developed a new instrument called "TechCheck" for assessing CT skills in young children that does not require prior knowledge of computer programming. "TechCheck" is based on…

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…

Science education reform has long focused on assessing student inquiry, and there has been progress in developing tools specifically with respect to experimentation and argumentation. We suggest the need for attention to another aspect of inquiry, namely "mechanistic reasoning." Scientific inquiry focuses largely on understanding causal…