Abstract
Despite the growing number of digital apps designed to teach coding skills to young children, we know little about their effectiveness. To formally explore this question, we conducted a naturalistic observation of a one-week program designed to teach foundational coding skills (i.e., sequencing, conditions, loops) to young children (N = 28, Mage = 5.15 years) using two tablet applications: Daisy the Dinosaur and Kodable. Pre- and post-assessments measured familiarity with technology, appeal of coding apps, knowledge of Daisy commands, ability to play Kodable, and conceptual understanding of coding. Participants improved in their knowledge of Daisy commands (i.e., move, grow, jump) and Kodable gameplay (i.e., placing arrows in the correct sequence to move a character through a maze), but did not improve in their ability to verbally explain what coding is. Appeal of the games was significantly related to children's learning of Daisy commands, but child gender was not related to either Daisy or Kodable learning outcomes. Results suggest that young children can learn foundational coding skills via apps, especially when the apps are appealing to children.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 52-62 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Computers and Education |
| Volume | 128 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2019 |
Funding
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Reese Program # DRL-1252121. Thank you to Ann C. Gadzikowski, the teachers, students, and families involved in the Story Code Alpha classroom. The authors also thank Kinnari Atit, Jue Wue, Grace Oni, Zachary Lochmueller, Leanne Beaudoin-Ryan, David Uttal, and the members of the Center on Media and Human Development for their assistance with data collection, analysis, and feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Reese Program # DRL-1252121 . Thank you to Ann C. Gadzikowski, the teachers, students, and families involved in the Story Code Alpha classroom. The authors also thank Kinnari Atit, Jue Wue, Grace Oni , Zachary Lochmueller , Leanne Beaudoin-Ryan, David Uttal, and the members of the Center on Media and Human Development for their assistance with data collection, analysis, and feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Appendix A
Keywords
- Apps
- Coding
- Computational thinking
- Digital games
- Educational technology
- STEM
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Computer Science
- Education
