Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived cognitive load and its effects on the academic performance in Scratch-based programming. The four main concepts of programming (sequences, operators, conditions and loop) were delivered in the instructional package. Participants were 12 sixth-grade students enrolled at a public secondary school. The results from quantitative and qualitative instruments indicated that students’ perceived cognitive loads were close to each other among four programming concepts. The attractive interface of Scratch was somewhat useful but some parts of the interface were problematic for achieving the programming tasks. This study concludes with suggestions for Scratch practitioners and researchers to pay attention to the sources of cognitive load effects. Published: 10 May 2018 Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2018, 26 : 1888 - http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v26.1888
Highlights
Over the past several years, teaching programming to children has become widespread (Benton et al 2017) and computational thinking has received considerable attention (Grover and Pea 2013; Barr and Stephenson 2011). Wing (2006) points out that computational thinking includes some mental tools for problem-solving related to the programming concepts
Because the present study focuses on the external cognitive load induced from Scratch environment, the tasks in the study were not so easy
This study suggests that it presents many advantages for understanding basic programming concepts and problem-solving, Scratch has some unusable components which may lead to cognitive load
Summary
Over the past several years, teaching programming to children has become widespread (Benton et al 2017) and computational thinking has received considerable attention (Grover and Pea 2013; Barr and Stephenson 2011). Wing (2006) points out that computational thinking includes some mental tools for problem-solving related to the programming concepts. Wing (2006) points out that computational thinking includes some mental tools for problem-solving related to the programming concepts. Considering its great potential in developing computational, critical and algorithmic thinking (Lee, Martin, and Apone 2014), higher-order thinking and problem-solving (Fessakis et al 2013) researchers suggest starting teaching programming at early ages to young students (Govender and Grayson 2006; Jenkins 2002; Proulx 2000). Some block-based programming environments equipped with visual tools were developed for young pupils (Weintrop and Wilensky 2015). Educators put in efforts to integrate Scratch activities into the curriculum and Research in Learning Technology 2018. Çakiroğlu et al Research in Learning Technology is the journal of the Association for Learning
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