Discovering children's competences in coding through the analysis of Scratch projects

Abstract

Computational thinking and coding has received considerable attention over the past several years. Considerable efforts worldwide suggest the need for more empirical studies providing evidence-based practices to introduce and engage children with coding activities. The main goal of this study is to examine which programming concepts students use when they want to develop a game, and what is the interrelation among these concepts. To achieve our goal, a field study was designed and data were collected from coding activities. In detail, during a two-week period, one-day workshops were organized almost every day on which 44 children participating in, with ages between 8-17. The workshops follow a constructionist approach and comprise of two parts. First the children interact with robots, and then develop a game using Scratch. The findings provide a deeper understanding on how children code by showing the use of specific programming concepts to develop their projects and their correlations. Hence, we improve our knowledge about children's competences in coding.