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Effects of interactive unplugged programming activities on computational thinking skills and student engagement in elementary education

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Abstract

Different instructional strategies have been drawn to assist elementary school students in improving computational thinking (CT) skills and student engagement (SE) in unplugged programming activities. This paper aimed to explore how the interactive strategies of unplugged programming affect CT skills and SE. The study was conducted based on a quasi-experimental research method. The sample was composed of 104 sixth-grade students from northern China. The students in the experimental group learned with interactive unplugged programming, whereas those in the control group learned with non-interactive unplugged programming. Analysis of Covariance statistics and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling were adopted for data analysis. Results showed that the performance of the experimental group in CT skills and SE was considerably better than that of the control group. Moreover, the predictive relationships were more complex between CT skills and SE in the experimental group. In general, these findings confirmed the teaching value of interactive unplugged programming, and further emphasized the important role of students’ CT skills in programming engagement. Therefore, through the application of interaction in instruction design, each student can be assigned a positive role to create a programming classroom that is more conducive to students.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Approval # 62077012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Science and Technology, Northeast Normal University, No. 2555, Jingyue Street, Changchun, 130117, Jilin, China

    Qi Li, Qiang Jiang, Yu Liang & Wei Zhao

  2. Program of Learning Sciences and Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, #162, Section 1, Heping East Road, 10610, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jyh-Chong Liang

  3. Institute of Policy Studies, School of Graduate Studies, Lingnan University, #8, Castle Peak Road, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong, SAR, China

    Weiyan Xiong

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  1. Qi Li
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Correspondence to Qiang Jiang or Jyh-Chong Liang.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Examples of pre- and post-tests (translated from Chinese to English)

1.1 Pre-test

  • The map near the home community is shown in the figure. Mom needs to go to the pharmacy to buy some medicines after getting off work today by bus, buy some vegetables for dinner, go to the bank to do some things, and finally return to the community. Mom can choose to get off at bus stop A, B, or C. In addition, gate A or B can be used to enter the community. Considering the distance, please choose a suitable route for mom.

figure a

1.2 Post-test

  • The map near the home community is shown in the figure. On Sunday, Cindy plans to go out of the community. She needs to go to the drugstore and the supermarket to buy something, then go to the bank to do some things, and finally take the bus to date with friends. The bus stops have three stops, A, B, and C, and the community gate has A or B for entry or exit. Considering the distance, please choose a suitable route for Cindy.

figure b

Appendix 2: Example of coding metric: item 3 in the pre-test

Tables

Table 3 The coding metric of item 3 in the pretest
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3

Appendix 3: The results of confirmatory factor analysis

As shown in Table

Table 4 The item factor loadings, CR, Cronbach’s alpha values, and descriptive statistics
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4, the factor loadings, Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) values (Hair et al., 2011) were adopted to evaluate the two PLS measurement models. Chin (1998) has contended, when there were other items in the construct, item factor loadings with 0.5 or 0.6 were considered to be suitable. Hence, the factor loadings were adequate for the items in the variables. In terms of the internal consistency and construct reliability, the CR values of each variable exceeded the minimum value of 0.7, and the AVE values of construct were larger than 0.5. Table

Table 5 The correlations and the discriminant validity among the variables
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5 shows the correlation matrix and the square root of the AVE value of SE and CT variables. The results suggested that the square root of the AVE value for each variable was larger than the correlation coefficients between the variable and the others for both groups. Hence, the verification of the model thus confirmed the convergent and construct validity of the variables in this model.

Tables 4, 5

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Li, Q., Jiang, Q., Liang, JC. et al. Effects of interactive unplugged programming activities on computational thinking skills and student engagement in elementary education. Educ Inf Technol 28, 12293–12318 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11634-7

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