The Development and Validation of Survey Items on Upper Elementary Students' Perspectives and Attitudes on CS

Abstract

Demand for K-6 computer science (CS) curricula is growing considerably. Many of the existing curricula have been developed by domain experts who are comfortable with specific and technical terminology, which they expect students to master. However, children are not always comfortable with these terms nor do they understand general concepts like 'coding' in the way that the curriculum designers intend. This is a problem because many researchers use self-report and attitudinal survey instruments with the implicit belief that the students' understanding of the terms and concepts resemble their own. This mismatch may invalidate results. For this project, we report on our modification of a validated survey to measure upper elementary students' attitudes about and perspectives on CS by attempting to understand the appropriate language to use when querying children about these topics. We use an iterative, design-based research approach that is informed by educational and psychological cognitive interview processes. We interviewed two groups (N=64) of upper elementary students on their understanding of computer science concepts and attitudes toward coding. Our findings indicate that 4th and 5th grade students could not explain the terms computer programs nor computer science as we had expected and that they struggled to understand how coding may connect with or support their learning in other domains. These results will help to guide the development of appropriate survey instruments and course materials for K-6 students, which both match their use of broad domain concepts and therefore inform their understanding and improve their outcomes.