Are Children More Motivated with Plugged or Unplugged Approach to Computational Thinking?

Abstract

In recent years, we have seen an increasing interest in bringing programming back to K-12 education. Many educators begin to recognize the necessity of helping children develop computational thinking (CT) as an essential skill to address 21st century challenges. In this poster, we report the preliminary findings from the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study based on a coding curriculum for Grade 4 to Grade 6. This 3-year study aims to gain an understanding of how coding activities helps children at upper primary school ages develop CT for problem solving, and if this problem-solving mindset is transferrable to other contexts, for example, daily life scenario and mathematical field. A part of the research focuses on a comparative study between students' intrinsic motivation of coding (i.e. 'plugged') activities and 'unplugged' activities (i.e. learning concepts from computer science through paper-based games without programming), which helps us understand the advantages and disadvantages of different learning approaches to CT. At the end of the first year, around 600 fourth graders' were assessed with their CT competence and affective tendency through: (1) a pre/post-test on the CT skill and mathematical ability; (2) a questionnaire on intrinsic motivation in plugged and unplugged activities. The preliminary findings indicate that students have gained a good programming-related knowledge and improved problem-solving skills through our curriculum. They were intrinsically motivated to participated in both types of activities. However, students did not show the ability to transfer computational thinking to mathematical context.