Computational thinking in programming with Scratch in primary schools: A systematic review

Abstract

Computer programming is being introduced in educational curricula, even at the primary school level. One goal of this implementation is to teach computational thinking (CT), which is potentially applicable in various computational problem‐solving situations. However, the educational objective of CT in primary schools is somewhat unclear: curricula in various countries define learning objectives for topics, such as computer science, computing, programming or digital literacy but not for CT specifically. Additionally, there has been confusion in concretely and comprehensively defining and operationalising what to teach, learn and assess about CT in primary education even with popular programming akin to Scratch. In response to the growing demands of CT, by conducting a literature review on studies utilising Scratch in K–9, this study investigates what kind of CT has been assessed in Scratch at the primary education level. As a theoretical background for the review, we define a tangible educational objective for introducing CT comprehensively in primary education and concretise the fundamental skills and areas of understanding involved in CT as its “core educational principles”. The results of the review summarise Scratch programming contents that students can manipulate and activities in which they can engage that foster CT. Moreover, methods for formatively assessing CT via students' Scratch projects and programming processes are explored. The results underpin that the summarised “CT‐fostering” programming contents and activities in Scratch are vast and multidimensional. The next steps for this study are to refine pedagogically meaningful ways to assess CT in students' Scratch projects and programming processes.

The pedagogy of multiliteracies as a code breaker: A suggestion for a transversal approach to computing education in basic education

“…Indeed, teachers in Mee's (2020, p. 3) survey expressed concern that 'the current pressure to focus on programming and coding is already resulting in a decline of wider digital competencies' required in a digitalized society, and primary teachers in Larke's (2019) study used their professional judgement to modify or reject England's National Curriculum on computing standards by minimizing or ignoring subject content that they deemed redundant or less than critical to their students' success. Second, the notions above imply that even an active implementation of computing education does not necessarily equate to a pedagogy that supports children's agentic subjectivity in a computationally steeped society, and a review of existing research (eg, Duncan et al, 2017;Fagerlund et al, 2021;Geldreich et al, 2018;Mertala et al, 2020;Otterborn et al, 2020;Papadakis & Kalogiannakis, 2020;Sáez-López et al, 2016;Rich et al, 2019;Vega & Cañas, 2019) suggests that technical and functional aspects are dominant in computing education and that societal issues are touched upon in only a limited manner at best. To overcome these obstacles, this conceptual paper proposes a more comprehensive approach for computing education.…”

Programar para aprender Matemáticas en 5º de Educación Primaria: implementación del proyecto ScratchMaths en España

“…Entre estos lenguajes destaca Scratch, sin duda el más utilizado en todo el mundo con más de 62 millones de usuarios registrados, muchos de ellos jóvenes en edad escolar. Y con este auge de la programación en el ámbito educativo se están realizando nuevas investigaciones en este campo, tratando de saber más sobre cómo afecta la programación a edades tempranas al aprendizaje de otras asignaturas (Fagerlund, Häkkinen, Vesisenaho, & Viiri, 2020;Moreno-León, Robles & Román-González, 2016).…”

Assessing 4th Grade Students’ Computational Thinking through Scratch Programming Projects

“…These principles can be manifested in Scratch in at least three categories: code constructs, coding patterns, and other programming contents. (Fagerlund et al, 2020. ) Code constructs, akin to language primitives, such as those for controlling the flow in programs (i.e., "sequence", "conditional", "loop") can be observed directly as Scratch blocks.…”

“…Based on our prior work in mapping Scratch programming contents and CT (Fagerlund et al, 2020), conceptual encounters with the core educational principles in CT's concepts and practices (Appendix C) were logged for each student through the functional and self-designed coding pattern instances and code constructs in these instances. For example, each "Animation" coding pattern instance and each "variable (state 1)" code construct logged a conceptual encounter with the "Abstractions of properties" (Abstraction) core educational principle.…”