The introduction of programming education in K-12 schools to promote computational thinking has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars and educators. Debugging code is a central skill for students, but is also a considerable challenge when learning to program. Learners at the K-12 level often lack confidence in programming debugging due…

In this study, we attempted to curate a list of tools whose primary intent is to enable and teach children to code. From this list, we developed a framework for the classification of coding tools and reviewed current research to determine how tools are used to teach coding in elementary education. The catalog grew to over 300 specific tools…

This study investigated the effects of 3D model building activities with block codes on students' spatial thinking and computational thinking skills. The study group consists of 5th grade students in a secondary school in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. For the study, a pretestposttest control group was utilized within the experimental…

The use of a pedagogical approach mediated transfer with the bridging method has been successful in facilitating the transitions from block-based to text-based programming languages. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research addressing the impact of this transfer on programming misconceptions during the transition. The way programming concepts are…

This study investigates computer programming ('coding') activities of Primary School Children; we ask if there is evidence of gender differences in their coding activities. The research took place in an English urban school with around 180 children on role, mostly from a middle-class social background. The study involved a class of 17 boys and 15…

Purpose: Much remains unknown about how young children orient to computational objects and how we as learning scientists can orient to young children as computational thinkers. While some research exists on how children learn programming, very little has been written about how they learn the technical skills needed to operate technologies or to…

Programming has been considered a crucial "object to think with", which can integrate with various disciplines and facilitate learning in other areas. However, existing research primarily focuses on how children learn to code rather than how coding helps them to learn. To address this gap, a quasi-experimental case study was conducted…

Background: The present study analyses the design of programming literacy in the sixth grade of Primary Education, starting from the use of simple activities with visual block-based programming, through "Scratch," and progressively linking difficulty to the use of the "Unity" engine, and the "C#" language, with simple…

We investigate three 8th-grade students' mathematical meanings developed in the context of using linked representations to generate animations of figural models tuned in musical rhythm in "MaLT2," a programmable Turtle Geometry in 3D resource affording dynamic manipulation of variable values. We adopted a modified version of the UDGS…

Coding games are widely used to teach computational thinking (CT). Studies have broadly investigated the role of coding games in supporting CT learning in formal classroom contexts, but there has been limited exploration of their use in informal home-based settings. This study investigated the factors that motivated students to use a coding game…

As computer-science-for-all initiatives continue to grow, many schools are looking for ways to introduce computer science skills and thinking to elementary-age children. Some initiatives have focused on coding as its own endeavor, not integrated with other subjects like mathematics, science, or literacy. Increasingly, developers and researchers…

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…

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…

This study implemented and evaluated the innovative use of a performance-based assessment platform to support the development of self-regulated learning (SRL) in senior primary students as they completed programming tasks. We embedded SRL support features into a performance-based assessment platform as scaffolding to help the students implement…

Background and Context: A continued gender disparity has driven a need for effective interventions for recruiting girls to computer science. Prior research has demonstrated that middle school girls hold beliefs and attitudes that keep them from learning computer science, which can be mitigated through classroom design. Objective: This study…