In recent years, digital storytelling activities have been used in various disciplines. In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of digital storytelling on students' digital literacy, 21st century skills, academic success, and retention in the sixth-grade Information Technologies and Software course. In the research, a…

Computational thinking is becoming an essential skill in educational systems. There is, however, still a great deal to learn about it. This research aims to evaluate whether the inclusion of a specific material (Junior School Bebras Cards) favors the development of primary students' computational thinking skills. For this purpose, 37 fourth-grade…

The COVID-19 pandemic raised the need to examine online learning methods also in young children. This study examined elementary school children's performance and attitudes during and toward an online programming learning activity utilizing the pair-programming Agile method that may foster 21st-century skills, including collaboration and…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a prominent topic in K-12 education recently. However, pedagogical design has remained a major challenge, especially among young learners. Guided by the Zone of Proximal Development theory and AI education research literature, this design-based study proposes an analogy-based pedagogical approach to…

Computational thinking is an important competence for learners in the twenty-first century. As an effective approach for cultivating competence in computational thinking, programming education has been extended from college to elementary school teaching. However, it is challenging to engage beginners in programming in elementary school education.…

As our society has advanced in the era of digital transformation, education has been transformed from knowledge-centered to competency-centered to solve future problems in the light of unpredictable changes and events in our lives. Programming education provides the basic knowledge needed, and fosters higher-order thinking skills in the process of…

The aim of this study is to compare the effects of unplugged and plugged-in activities on academic achievement and computational thinking (CT) skills of sixth-grade students. Mixed-method research was carried out to explore whether there were differences between the groups, and to learn the students' opinions and experiences regarding the…

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…

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…

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of Minecraft-based coding activities on computational thinking (CT) of middle school students. In the study, CT was conceptualized so that it encapsulates not only the knowledge of computational concepts (e.g., loops and conditionals) but also the use of CT practices (e.g., testing and debugging).…

The interest in computational thinking development at pre-university education stage is increasing. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted to address two main objectives: (a) to analyze the effectiveness of empirical interventions in K-12 education for the development of Computational Thinking (CT); and (b) to identify and evaluate the…

Computational Thinking (CT) has been formally incorporated into the National Curriculum of Thailand since 2017, where Scratch, a block-based visual programming language, has been widely adopted as CT learning environment for primary-level students. However, conducting hands-on coding activities in a classroom has caused substantial challenges…

One of the aspects of programming that novices often struggle with is the understanding of abstract concepts, such as variables, loops, expressions, and especially Boolean operations. This paper aims to explore the effects of programming tools with different degrees of embodiment on learning Boolean operations in elementary school. To this end, 67…

The push to teach coding in schools continues to gain momentum. Coding helps students develop skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity, as well as improve overall academic performance. However, students with disabilities often face challenges in areas such as problem-solving, mathematics, and multistep reasoning when learning…

This study investigated the effectiveness of the 'Match it' card sorting activity for evaluating the student teachers' knowledge and understanding of computational thinking (CT) concepts. One hundred forty-six primary student teachers were asked to sort 26 scenarios and words alongside nine images under five main computational concepts:…