The perceptions of secondary school students regarding the learning of computer programming at Key Stage 4 in the revised curriculum in England: problems and solutions.

Abstract

Programming is becoming progressively important for many societies in the world today. It is also required in educational institutions and is especially important for students who will be graduating and looking for employment opportunities in the future. However, the teaching of a programming is not well developed in many secondary schools in different areas in England. Today, teaching programming is considered to be of the priority domain of several countries in the twenty-first century. Interest in this domain is wide and the amount of research conducted in the field is numerous. This study was designed to investigate and to aid a critical students’ understanding of the learning of programming in the revised Key Stage 4 (KS4) Computer Science (CS) curriculum. It seeks to understand the impact of learning programming on student’s perceptions toward programming and how to improve the teaching and learning of programming. The study found that the issues faced by students learning programming include a lack of time, the perception that it is a ‘difficult’ subject and students’ insufficient understanding of programming. The findings also suggest that schools have made efforts to overcome these challenges and are willing to adopt programming as a subject and to help, encourage, develop and improve students’ ability to learn programming.