Introducing fundamental object-oriented programming concepts in preschool education within the context of physical science courses

Abstract

Objects are everywhere. People deal with them from the beginning of their lives. From babyhood, they start to recognise them and, progressively, learn to define their attributes and designate the actions related to them. Although the basis of object-oriented programming is translating real-world objects into the object-oriented code, learning object-oriented programming is still a difficult task. To overcome this difficulty, we have to specify the right starting point of teaching basic object-oriented concepts and mark out the appropriate educational tools. In this paper, trying to answer the above questions, we present a research proposal on how fundamental object-oriented programming concepts could be introduced to children in early childhood education when physical science courses take place. The backbone of our research is the digital environment PhysGramming, through which children turn into creators, according to the theory of constructivism. The innovative aspect of PhysGramming is that children create their own games while studying physical science, in a way that provides familiarity with the basic principles of object-oriented programming and computational thinking, even though no specific reference is made to these principles.