ScratchJr design in practice: Low floor, high ceiling

Abstract

The demand for developmentally appropriate tools and learning environments for early childhood computer science education is greater than ever. One of the most widely used introductory coding environments designed for children ages 5–7 is ScratchJr (Bers and Resnick, 2015, Flannery et al., 2013), which has over 40 million users worldwide. ScratchJr was designed as a “low floor, high ceiling” learning environment - meaning that it is accessible to novice users while also allowing more experienced users to grow their knowledge. In this paper, we evaluate how the “low floor, high ceiling” design of ScratchJr is received in practice through looking at the programming performance of users at different ages, timepoints, and experience levels. We find that the youngest, and most novice users were able to engage with the app to some extent with no instruction, but engagement was optimized with curricular support. Additionally, we found that the oldest, and most experienced users still had room for growth and discovery in the app. We conclude that the design decisions in ScratchJr such as iconography, block variation, and open-endedness of the environment creates a welcoming and engaging experience for a wide range of users, both children and adults.