Impacts of Block-based Programming on Young Learners’ Programming Skills and Attitudes in the Context of Smart Environments

Abstract

Inexperienced and young learners typically have difficulties with respect to programming experiences and activities. These difficulties are mainly because of their lack of syntactic knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and strategic knowledge. Considering the complexity of introductory programming for the learners, visual programming has become more and more popular. In particular, block-based programming has emerged as an area of active research.

Block-based programming environments have become the standard medium of instruction in the design of introductory programming courses for young learners. As a result, they are employed by researchers and educators to enable learners to learn programming and author computer programs. In addition to these programming environments, an interesting and motivating context is needed to encourage young learners to start with programming activities. Scientific works emphasize that tangible interactive objects benefit learning, especially for young learners. Moreover, countless block-based programming environments have been employed together with these objects in order to improve the learners' emotional engagement, attitudes, and their computer programming performance. Nevertheless, we have a lack of investigation on the impacts of new and powerful technologies (which provide possibilities to tightly connect computer science to reality and introduce the future) on young learners' programming skills and attitudes. This research is aimed at a better understanding of how the use of block-based programming together with state-of-the-art smart technologies can leverage young learners' interest in programming, and support the acquisition of programming skills.