This article integrates an ecological approach and design-based research in computer science education research by following the simultaneous development of a computer programming environment and curriculum for elementary school age children over 2-1/2 years. We studied the alignment of the affordances provided by the programming environment and…

This study examined whether developing earlier forms of knowledge in specific learning environments prepares students better for future learning when they are placed in an unfamiliar learning environment. Forty-one students in the fifth and sixth grades learned to program robot movements using abstract concepts of speed, distance and direction.…

This study employed a case study design (Yin, "Case study research, design and methods," 2009) to investigate the processes used by 5th graders to design and develop computer games within the context of their environmental science unit, using the theoretical framework of "constructionism." Ten fifth graders designed computer games using "Scratch"…