Abstract
In Poland, talent development is organized mainly outside or alongside the educational system. A large number of privately funded informatics contests and extra-curricular talent development programs for highly motivated students are available. However, traditional competitions also exist including national informatics Olympiads and competitions mainly supported by the Ministry of Education. In particular, we stimulate interest in informatics by organizing the annual nationwide InfoSukces contest. This contest was organized for the first time in 2015 when informatics education in Poland was experiencing difficulties recruiting new students, who were in growing demand on the labor market. The aim of the contest is now to make students aware that the jobs of the future require problem-solving, digital skills, and creative thinking, all of which can be taught through informatics. The contest also provides a platform for a unique series of activities, the goal of which is to support partnerships and knowledge flow between schools and universities. This article provides a case study of the final stage of the InfoSukces contest, which involves the participants developing a “work of art” in the Scratch programming environment. It also presents the holistic method for quantitative evaluation of the students’ creative visual-based programming projects.
Highlights
Talented young people should be nurtured with care and interest
The purpose of this article is to clarify the impact of the InfoSukces contest on learning informatics of primary/secondary school talented students
Analysis of internal consistency showed that the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.79 for a set of 15 criteria, indicating good scale reliability. As it is seen from the statistic for the InfoSukces contest, the overall picture is rather bright for Polish talented primary/secondary school students
Summary
Talented young people should be nurtured with care and interest. They are crucial for social development and economic growth both locally and nationally. A number of traditional competitions exist, including national Olympiads or competitions for young researchers and engineers, which are mainly supported by the Ministry of Education One such event aimed at stimulating interest in informatics and training students to study programming is the annual nationwide InfoSukces contest (Konkurs informatyczny InfoSukces, 2020). This contest was conceived in 2015 when informatics education in Poland was experiencing difficulties recruiting new students and training informatics specialists, who were in increasing demand on the labor market This contest is a one-of-a-kind set of activities aimed at connecting universities with schools to better prepare talented students for future careers in informatics-related fields. The purpose of this article is to clarify the impact of the InfoSukces contest on learning informatics of primary/secondary school talented students
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