Abstract
The teaching of computing is becoming an essential addition to twenty-first-century learning. An important part of this new addition is the teaching of computing in earlier grades, starting as early as kindergarten in some countries. Yet, there is little research that reports on computing practices in earlier grades. The purpose of this study was to paint a broad picture of the teaching of computing in primary education from teachers’ perspectives through a 20-min snowball survey sent out to elementary computing groups. This study reports on the teaching of over 300 teachers who are responsible for teaching computing to nearly 60,000 primary-aged students. The results principally represented teachers in the US and the UK, though smaller samples of teachers from 23 total countries are included. We report on teachers’ responses by analyzing quantitative data and open-ended responses to questions about their experiences in teaching computing to children. Results highlight teachers’ level of preparation to teach computing, the most commonly taught programming languages, teacher successes and challenges, and observations on how learning to program has affected students.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Research note: In order to allow others to freely explore these data as we did, (Electronic supplementary material).
References
ACARA. (2016). The Australian curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download/f10.
de Araujo, A., Andrade, W., & Serey-Guerrero, D. (2016). A systematic mapping study on assessing computational thinking abilities. In 2016 IEEE frontiers in education conference (FIE) (pp. 1–9). IEEE.
Bandura, A. (2010). Self-efficacy the corsini encyclopedia of psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0836.
Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12. ACM Inroads, 2(1), 48. https://doi.org/10.1145/1929887.1929905.
Brown, I., & Inouye, D. K. (1978). Learned helplessness through modeling: The role of perceived similarity in competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 900.
Brown, N. C. C., Sentence, S., Crick, T., & Humphreys, S. (2014). Restart: The resurgence fo computer science in UK schools. ACM Transactions On Computing Education, 14(2), Article 9). https://doi.org/10.1145/2602484.
Buss, A., & Gamboa, R. (2017). Teacher transformations in developing computational thinking: Gaming and robotics use in after-school settings. In P. J. Rich & C. B. Hodges (Eds.), Emerging research, practice, and policy on computational thinking (pp. 189–203). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52691-1_12.
Crick, T. (2017). Final draft: Computing education: An overview of research in the field. The Royal Society. Retrieved from https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/computing-education/literature-review-overview-research-field.pdf.
Croff, C. H. (2017). Teaching computational thinking patterns in rural communities. In P. J. Rich & C. B. Hodges (Eds.), Emerging research, practice, and policy on computational thinking (pp. 175–188). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52691-1_11.
CS4RI (2016). Computer Science for Rhode Island. Retrieved from http://www.cs4ri.org/ .
Cutts, Q., Robertson, J., Donaldson, P., & O’Donnell, L. (2017). An evaluation of a professional learning network for computer science teachers. Computer Science Education, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2017.1315958.
Delcker, J., & Ifenthaler, D. (2017). Computational thinking as an interdisciplinary approach to computer science school curricula. In P. Rich & C. Hodges (Eds.), Emerging research, practice and policy in computational thinking. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52691-1_4
Department for Education (2013). The national curriculum in England. Framework Document.
Engelhardt, K. & Balanskat, A. (2015). Computing our future. Computing programming and coding. Priorities, school curricula and initiatives across europe. European Schoolnet.
Furber, S. (2012). Shut down or restart? The way forward for computing in UK schools. London: The Royal Society.
Garneli, V., Giannokos, M. N., & Chorianopoulos, K. (2015). Computing education in K-12 schools: A review of the literature. In Proceedings from Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). p. 543–551.
Heintz, F., Mannila, L., & Färngvist, T. (2016). A review of models for introducing computational thinking, computer science and computing in K-12 education. In Frontiers in education conference (FIE), 2016 IEEE. Erie: IEEE.
Kallia, M. (2017). Assessment in Computer Science Courses: A Literature Review. Retrieved from https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/computing-education/assessment-literature-review.pdf
Lye, S. Y., & Koh, J. H. L. (2014). Review on teaching and learning of computational thinking through programming: What is next for K-12? Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 51–61.
Marcelino, M. J., Pessoa, T., Vieira, C., Salvador, T., & Mendes, A. J. (2017). Learning computational thinking and scratch at distance. Computers in Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.09.025.
Moreno-León, J., Robles, G., & Román-González, M. (2015). Dr. Scratch: Automatic analysis of scratch projects to assess and foster computational thinking. RED. Revista de Educación a Distancia, 46, 1–23.
Qian, Y., Hambrusch, S., Yadav, A., & Gretter, S. (2018). Who needs what: Recommendations for designing effective online professional development for computer science teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 50(2), 164–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2018.1433565.
Ribeiro, R. (2013). Chicago makes computer science a core subject. EdTech Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/12/chicago-makes-computer-science-core-subject.
Rich, P. J. (2012). Inside the black box: Revealing the process in applying a grounded theory analysis. The Qualitative Report, 17(49), 1–23.
Rich, P. J., Leatham, K. R., & Wright, G. A. (2013). Convergent cognition. Instructional Science, 41(2), 431–453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-012-9240-7?LI=true#page-1.
Rich, P., Bly, N., & Keith, L. (2014). Beyond cognitive increase: Investigating the influence of computer programming on perception and application of mathematical skills. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 33(1), 103–128.
Rich, P. J., Jones, B. L., Belikov, O., Yoshikawa, E., & Perkins. (2017). Computing and engineering in elementary school: The effect of year-long training on elementary teacher self-efficacy and beliefs about teaching computing and engineering. International Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.21585/ijcses.v1i1.6
Sentance, S., & Csizmadia, A. (2017). Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher’s perspective. Education and Information Technologies, 22(2), 469–495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9482-0.
Sentance, S., Dorling, M., McNicol, A., & Crick, T. (2012). Grand challenges for the UK. Upskilling teachers to teach computers science within the secondary curriculum. Proceedings from the 7th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, New York, New York, USA.
Smith, D. F. (22 Sept. 2015). The ‘grand experiment’ behind NYC schools’ new cowww.cs4ri.orgom: http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2015/09/grand-experiment-behind-nyc-schools-new-computer-science-program
Toikkanen, T., & Leinonen, T. (2017). The code ABC MOOC: Experiences from a coding and computational thinking MOOC for finnish primary school teachers | springerlink. In P. J. Rich & Hodges (Eds.), Emerging research, practice, and policy on computational thinking (pp. 239-248). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from link.springer.com: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-52691-1_15
Valverde-Berrocoso, J., Fernández-Sánchez, M. R., Garrido-Arroy, M. C. (2015). El pensamiento computacional y las nuevas ecologías del aprendizaje. RED, Revista de Educación a Distancia, 46(3), Retrieved 1 May 2017 from http://www.um.us/ead/red/46.
Vivian, R., Falkner, K., & Falkner, N. (2014). Addressing the challenges of a new digital technologies curriculum: MOOCs as a scalable solution for teacher professional development. Research in Learning Technology, 22(1), 24691. https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.24691.
Waite, J. (2017). Pedagogy in teaching Computer Science in Schools: A Literature Review. Retrieved from https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/computing-education/literature-review-pedagogy-in-teaching.pdf
Wong, G. K., Cheung, H. Y., Ching, E. C., & Huen, J. M. (2015). School perceptions of coding education in K-12: A large scale quantitative study to inform innovative practices. In Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (pp. 5–10). Zhuhai: IEEE
Young, S. H. (Feb, 2016). I have been a student of SW education since elementary school. Retrieved from: http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=018&aid=0003472819.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in this study were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional board (IRB) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. When presented with the survey, participants were first asked to provide their informed consent in accordance with IRB approval.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(XLSX 202 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rich, P.J., Browning, S.F., Perkins, M. et al. Coding in K-8: International Trends in Teaching Elementary/Primary Computing. TechTrends 63, 311–329 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0295-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0295-4