British Journal of Educational Technology doi:10.1111/bjet.12453
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00–00
An investigation of the effects of programming with Scratch on the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards computer programming Erman Yukselturk and Serhat Altiok Erman Yukselturk is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies at Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey. His research interests are pre and inservice teacher technology education, technology enhanced learning, electronic games and distance education. Serhat Altiok is a research assistant in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies at Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey. Address for correspondence: Erman Yukselturk, Chairperson, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies, Education Faculty at Kırıkkale University, Yahsihan/Kırıkkale, Turkey. Email:
[email protected]
Abstract The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of programming with Scratch on the views of preservice Information Technology (IT) teachers towards computer programming. The study sample consisted of 151 preservice IT teachers who took an elective course including a Scratch module in the 2013–14 academic year. Three online questionnaires (Personal Information Questionnaire, The Computer Programming Self-Efficacy Scale and The Computer Programming Learning Attitude Scale) were used to gather the quantitative data and focus group interviews were conducted to collect the qualitative data regarding the preservice IT teachers’ views in more detail. According to the results, there were significant increases in the mean of the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions regarding almost all complex programming tasks after their Scratch programming experience. The results also showed that the preservice IT teachers’ negative attitudes towards programming decreased significantly and programming in the Scratch platform had significantly positive effects on the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes regarding some items in the scale.
Introduction Twenty-first century students are expected to have some basic skills such as the abilities to think critically, analyze and synthesize information, work in cooperation and collaboration, be innovative and productive. In addition to these basic skills, they are also required to acquire further skills that have emerged as a result of the rapid development in technology such as technology, information management and media literacy. Consequently, they are obliged to equip themselves with technological knowledge and skills and use them effectively in their lives (Trilling & Fadel, 2009). Several studies have been conducted investigating the useful techniques that can provide students with these skills, and one such technique has been found to be teaching computer programming (Akpinar & Altun, 2014; Cakiroglu, Sari & Akkan, 2011; Kalelioglu & Gulbahar, 2014). Computer programming is perceived as an important competence aiding in the development of higher-order thinking skills such as problem solving, creative thinking, logical C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic • • •
Computer programming is perceived as an important competence aiding in the development of higher-order thinking skills. There is a consistent decline in the number of students choosing computer science programs. Scratch is a free educational programming environment.
What this paper adds • • • •
Scratch programming environment offers innovative programming techniques and facilitates easy development of animations, interactive stories and games. Scratch programming had a significant impact on the preservice IT teachers’ selfefficacy perceptions while performing complex programming tasks. Scratch programming significantly affected some attitudes of the preservice IT teachers. The preservice IT teachers’ negative attitudes towards programming decreased significantly after the Scratch programming experience.
Implications for practice and/or policy • • •
Learning Scratch programming could be one of the ways for teaching computational skills and creative thinking. Programming courses might be redesigned using Scratch in order to promote computational skills and creative thinking for the beginner programmers. Scratch is a useful tool for programming, but it also has limitations.
reasoning, systematic experimentation and the like (Akcaoglu, 2014; Akpinar & Altun, 2014; Baytak & Land, 2011; Fesakis & Serafeim, 2009). There have been several studies on the relationship between computer programming and other higher-order skills which have demonstrated its significant positive effects (Akcaoglu, 2014; Ke, 2014; Fesakis & Serafeim, 2009; Kalelioglu & Gulbahar, 2014; Liao & Bright, 1991). For example, Liao and Bright (1991) conducted a meta-analysis on the effects of computer programming on cognitive outcomes and the quantitative data from 65 studies were transformed into a common scale. They found that computer programming had a slightly positive effect on students’ problem-solving performance. In recent studies, the results of Akcaoglu’s (2014) study analyzing a game-design summer program indicated that there were significant improvements in students’ problem-solving skills after attending the program. In their study, Kalelioglu and Gulbahar (2014) investigated the effect of programming on fifth grade primary school students’ problem solving skills. They found that there was a slight improvement in the students’ self-confidence in their problem-solving ability. Another study conducted by Ke (2014) analyzing the potential of computer-assisted math game making activities showed that students developed significantly more positive dispositions towards mathematics after their experiences into computer game making. In the near future, it is predicted that computer programming will be considered an important component of literacy in modern societies because it enables citizens to become active producers of interactive digital environments (Fesakis & Serafeim, 2009). Despite the benefits and importance of computer programming, its core concepts are considered difficult to be comprehended and mastered. Also, there are some problems related to the C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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acquisition of computer programming skills, which might significantly influence students’ academic success and satisfaction level (Erdogan, Aydin & Kabaca, 2008; Korkmaz, 2012). This is mainly due to the fact that dealing with the syntactic errors encountered while typing the commands within complex logical structures is a great challenge for novice programmers (Choi, 2013). Also, the studies show that many problems in learning programming originate from the level of abstraction and complexity required in understanding concepts such as variables, loops, arrays or functions. These difficulties may turn into barriers to learning programming skills (Ozoran, Cagiltay & Topalli, 2012). These and similar factors affect student success in learning programming, the most influential factors being students’ attitudes and self-efficacy perceptions towards programming (Baser, 2013; Erdogan et al, 2008; Korkmaz, 2012). Computer programming competence does not just have to do with cognitive skills and prior knowledge of software applications, but, at the same time, it could be directly related to individuals’ attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs regarding computer programming (Altun & Mazman, 2012; Baser, 2013; Korkmaz, 2012; Korkmaz & Altun, 2013). The studies show that there is a significant relation between the accomplishment of tasks in the computer environment and the attitudes of students towards computer technology (Baser, 2013; Korkmaz & Altun, 2013). Furthermore, students with negative self-efficacy perceptions towards programming considering it quite difficult even at the very beginning of such a course were found to be more likely to fail in these courses (Altun & Mazman, 2012; Baser, 2013). Accordingly, to facilitate the teaching and learning environment for programming courses which require students to handle a set of complex and difficult activities, many educators employ various approaches and methodologies such as individual work, collaborative work, simulation tools and pair programming. Nevertheless, there has been a consistent decline in the number of students choosing computer science programs (Baser, 2013). These problems have urged educators to question their current practices, and in this respect, special visual programming environments have recently gained more attention. Research results show that visual programming practices can be more efficient than classical textual programming approaches. Students can be more motivated, and suffer less in the absence of issues such as having to deal with the syntax of programming languages (Kaucic & Asic, 2011; Meerbaum-Salant, Armoni & Ben-Ari, 2010). One of these visual programming environments is Scratch that allows users to create interactive media-rich projects. Scratch is a free educational programming environment that was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Laboratory. The Scratch project began in 2003, and its software and website (http://scratch.mit.edu) were publicly launched in 2007. Nowadays, it hosts a community with almost 1.5 million registered members and over 12 million projects have been uploaded. Scratch makes programming more enjoyable and visual, and helps in learning algorithm concepts. Programming is done by dragging and dropping blocks to form scripts such as expressions, conditions, statements and variables. The elimination of syntax errors makes Scratch accessible to especially young people, and using this environment, they can create animated stories, games, tutorials, simulations, book reports and greeting cards (Maloney, Resnick, Rusk, Silverman & Eastmond, 2010; Meerbaum-Salant et al, 2010; Ozoran et al, 2012). As a result, Scratch provides instructors with several opportunities while teaching programming concepts at all levels before plunging into programming in professional languages. However, the research on teachers’ perspectives pertaining to Scratch as one of the most recent environments for teaching and learning programming is still limited (Fesakis & Serafeim, 2009). Hence, in this C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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study the effects of Scratch programming experiences on the views of preservice information technology (IT) teachers towards computer programming were investigated by addressing the following research questions: • •
How do Scratch programming experiences change preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards computer programming? What are the preservice IT teachers’ views about programming in the Scratch environment?
Method Research design This study was carried out using mixed methods design that combines qualitative and quantitative methods. The mixed methods approach is useful to capture the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative approaches and complement nonoverlapping weaknesses (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). In this study, researchers collected quantitative and qualitative data consecutively. The quantitative part was conducted following a pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design. The treatment variable of the study was Scratch programming and the dependent variables were Selfefficacy and Attitude. The quantitative data were collected at the beginning and at the end of the semester through a web-based questionnaire which included 7-point Likert Scale questions about self-efficacy perceptions and 5-point Likert Scale questions about attitude towards programming. At the end of the semester, the qualitative part was conducted with three focus-group interviews to get preservice IT teachers’ views about programming with Scratch following a semistructured interview form. The focus group interview is a “series of carefully planned discussions to obtain the perceptions about a predetermined topic in a moderate and non-threatening environment” (Yildirim & Simsek, 2008, p.152). In this study, each focus group consisted of five to six students selected from the three different sections of the course. While collecting the data through focus group interviews, participants were selected based on their achievement and interest levels in the course. Both the low-achievers and the high-achievers as well as those with a relatively higher level of interest and those with a lower level of interest in the course were asked to participate in the interviews to attain a comprehensive picture of student views.
Setting This study was designed to examine the effects of programming with Scratch on the self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes of preservice IT teachers towards computer programming. It was conducted in an elective course with three sections which offered a Scratch module, at a large research university in the middle region of Turkey. The aim of the course was to develop a good understanding of programming and learn how to develop educational games using Scratch. The participants had already taken at least one programming course, and they knew the basic programming concepts. After a revision of these concepts in the first couple of weeks, they were introduced with the Scratch platform and provided with an opportunity to do hands-on laboratory activities that spanned 5 weeks. As part of the requirements of the course, students were asked to complete two assignments, take a 30-minute midterm at the laboratory, and design, develop and present projects on educational games using Scratch. In the projects, they were allowed to choose their own game concepts and worked individually. They prepared certain documents such as game proposal, analysis and design documents during the process which was supervised by their course instructors. At the end of the course, they presented their projects to their instructors and classmates. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Table 1: The characteristics of the participants
Gender Male Female Weekly hours of computer use 0–2 hours 3–5 hours 6–8 hours Computer programming knowledge Low Intermediate High
N
%
75 76
49.7 50.3
30 72 49
19.9 47.7 32.5
22 111 18
14.6 73.5 11.9
Participants The participants selected using convenience sampling were 151 preservice IT teachers who took an elective course including a Scratch module in the 2013–14 academic year. All preservice IT teachers study at Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology and they are trained to teach IT-related courses in K-12 institutions. For instance, the course that would be taught in the secondary school by these preservice IT teachers after graduation is “Information Technologies and Software” consisting computer programming concepts. The number of male and female preservice IT teachers was almost equal (Male 5 75; Female 5 76). The participants (80.2%) use computer more than 3 hours a week. With respect to their computer programming knowledge, the majority of the preservice IT teachers (73.5%) rated their knowledge as intermediate (Table 1). Instrumentation The instruments included three online questionnaires that returned the quantitative data and subsequent focus-group interviews for the qualitative data. The Personal Information Questionnaire, developed by the researchers, contained three closedended items about participants’ gender, weekly hours of computer use and level of computer programming knowledge, requiring them to pick an answer from a given number of options. The Computer Programming Self-Efficacy Scale (CPSES) was used to examine individuals’ programming self-efficacy perceptions. This scale was originally developed by Ramalingam and Wiedenbeck (1998), and translated into Turkish by Altun and Mazman (2012). Being a 7-point Likert-type scale, it consisted of nine items falling under two factors, ability to perform simple programming tasks and ability to perform complex programming tasks. The reliability of the scale was high, .928. Similarly, the Cronbach-Alpha internal consistency coefficient for the current study was computed as .945. The Computer Programming Learning Attitude Scale (CPLAS) was used to measure students’ attitudes towards learning computer programming. This scale was developed by Korkmaz and Altun (2014). It is a 5-point Likert-type scale, consisting of 20 items, grouped under three factors (Willingness, Negativity and Necessity). The Cronbach-Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be between .749 and .824. Similarly, it was found to be between .90 and .928 in this study. Subsequently, three focus group interviews were conducted to elicit additional information regarding the preservice IT teachers’ views on Scratch programming. After the completion of the C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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course and implementation of the inventories, the researchers chose five or six preservice IT teachers from each section of the course to form focus groups based on their levels of achievement and interest in the course. Then, the focus group interviews were conducted using a semistructured interview form. The interview questions, seven in total, were developed around the central themes related to the Scratch programming experiences of the preservice IT teachers, and they were examined for clarity by two experts in the field of instructional technology at the university. The following are some items from this set of questions: • • • •
Having completed this course offering Scratch programming, how have your ideas about programming changed? What are your favorite aspects of Scratch? Did you have any difficulties in programming with Scratch? Would you consider using Scratch in your courses in the future?
Data collection procedure and analysis The preservice IT teachers who took the course were asked to participate in this study. In the first week of the course, they were informed about the study and were told that their participation would bring them bonus points. Students were asked via e-mail to complete the three online questionnaires at the beginning and at the end of the course. One additional email reminder was sent to those who did not fill the questionnaires. The data gathered through the questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations). Also, paired t-test was calculated to determine if there were any statistically significant differences between the preservice IT teachers’ perceptions regarding programming before the course and those after completing the course. In addition, three focus group interviews were conducted after completing the course. Before each interview took place, the preservice IT teachers were informed about the purpose of the interview. Each interview took about 20–30 minutes, and was tape-recorded with the participants’ consent. The records were transcribed by the researchers and their content analysis was conducted using the content analysis method defined by Creswell (2012) as in the following: (1) prepare and organize the data for analysis, (2) explore and code the data, (3) build descriptions and themes, (4) represent and report the qualitative findings, (5) interpret the findings and (6) validate the accuracy of the findings. During the data analysis, the transcript for each interview was read individually and grouped based on the preservice teachers’ views about Scratch programming. The similarities and differences in views were considered while grouping the data, and explanations were stated in line with these findings. In addition to the researchers’ transcriptions, another expert in the field listened to and transcribed the interview records for comparison in order to achieve reliability between the transcribers. The findings were presented without any comment to demonstrate the actual data, and then the results were interpreted. Results The effects of Scratch programming on the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions towards programming The Self-efficacy Scale consisted of two sets of questions: the ones on performing simple programming tasks and the ones on performing complex programming tasks. The t-test results of the pretest and posttest of the self-efficacy scale (CPSES) are shown in Table 2 below. According to these results, there were no significant differences between the pretest and posttest results of the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions regarding simple programming tasks. On the contrary, there were significant increases in the mean of the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions regarding almost all complex programming tasks. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Table 2: Preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy scores towards programming Before
Simple Programming Tasks I can write a program that displays “Hello World” message. I can write a program that computes the average of three values. I can write a program that computes the average of any given number of values. Complex Programming Tasks I can write a long and complex program to solve any given problem as long as the specifications are clearly defined. I can organize and design my program in a modular manner. I can debug (correct all the errors) a long and complex program that I had written and make it work. I can comprehend a long, complex multifile program. I could rewrite lengthy confusing portions of code to be more readable and clear. I can find a way to concentrate on my program, even when there were many distractions around me.
After
Mean
Std
Mean
Std
p
6.40
1.13
6.28
1.29
.23
6.10
1.32
6.14
1.30
.73
5,58
1,61
5,64
1,56
.57
3.78
1.78
4.30
1.69
.000*
3.85
1.77
4.58
1.64
.000*
3.77
1.81
4.19
1.69
.000*
3.81 3.67
1.75 1.76
4.15 3.99
1.70 1.67
.004* .008*
4.02
1.82
4.18
1.76
.28
*p < 0.05.
The effects of Scratch programming on the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes towards programming The t-test results of the pretest and posttest of the Attitude Scale (CPLAS) are shown in Table 3 below. When the pretest and posttest results are compared, programming in the Scratch platform had significantly positive effects on the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes regarding some items in the scale that include enjoying and feeling very comfortable in the programming course, feeling capable of developing high-level programming products and feeling capable of writing long and complex programs. The results also showed that the preservice IT teachers’ negative attitudes towards programming decreased significantly after their Scratch programming experiences. Conversely, there were no significant differences in the mean of the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes regarding some items that include having a desire to participate in more programming courses and become a member of a programming club, and feeling capable of learning programming. Besides, there were no significant differences between the pretest and posttest results of the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes regarding the items asking whether programming courses were necessary or not. The preservice IT teachers’ views about programming with Scratch The content analysis of the focus-group interview transcripts involved the stages of preparing and organizing the data for analysis, exploring and coding the data, building descriptions and themes, representing and reporting the qualitative findings, interpreting the findings and validating the accuracy of the findings. The transcripts were grouped and interpreted based on the emerging themes and the similarities and differences in the views of the preservice IT teachers towards Scratch programming. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Table 3: Preservice IT teachers’ attitude scores towards programming Before
Willingness Given the chance, I would like to participate in computer programming courses in different departments in my free time. Writing a computer program is funny for me. I want to be a member of a club for computer programming. Computer programming courses are at the head of the courses that I enjoy the most. I thing that less time for lesson about programming skills. I feel very comfortable in computer programming courses. I’m sure I can learn to computer programming. I am sure I am able to put on high-level programming products. I think I can write long and complex programs. Negativity I am afraid of computer programming courses. I am not good in computer programming. Computer programming is very difficult to me. In my spare time, writing a computer program does not deal with inside. Programming courses has always been my worst courses. I can handle many issues. But it cannot keep a good job with programming. Necessity Programming will not be important to my business life. After graduating from school, I do not think use the programming skills. Taking Programming course is a waste time for me. It does not matter for my future to be successful in programming My teachers think that advanced programming would be a waste of time for me.
After
Mean
Std
Mean
Std
p
3.33
1.11
3.23
1.09
.27
3.12 3.28
1.13 1.11
3.19 3.31
1.10 1.12
.33 .69
2.86
1.25
3.07
1.20
.008*
3.16
1.08
3.39
1.14
.003*
3.10
1.14
3.35
1.11
.007*
3.71 2.98
.98 .99
3.83 3.22
.94 1.11
.16 .004*
2.85
1.05
3.16
1.11
.000*
2.72 2.95 2.85 3.28
1.21 1.22 1.21 1.20
2.42 2.70 2.59 3.19
1.12 1.13 1.15 1.25
.002* .008* .006* .36
2.39
1.08
2.21
1.07
.041*
2.74
1.14
2.41
1.11
.000*
2.48 2.82
1.11 1.23
2.42 2.64
1.14 1.24
.51 .070
2.09 2.22
.96 1.12
1.99 2.15
.95 1.08
.24 .43
1.99
.97
1.97
.96
.87
*p < 0.05.
The findings from the focus groups interviews pertaining to the questions regarding the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions toward programming showed similarities with the results from the Self-efficacy Scale. According to the preservice IT teachers, since they had previously taken at least one programming course, they already knew the basic programming concepts and could perform simple programming tasks using other programming languages. Therefore, they stated, they could perform similar simple programming tasks with the Scratch platform as well. One participant said that “Appling the basic programming techniques using Scratch, one can easily develop a lot of simple applications and games, without much programming experience.” In addition, almost all of the preservice IT teachers thought that they had not C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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had enough previous experience to write complex programs or develop high-level programming products. These views did not change much after the Scratch programming experience as they expressed the point that Scratch would best serve the people with no previous programming experience in learning and teaching basic concepts of programming, but would be limited in learning and teaching more complex and high-level programming tasks. Although the preservice IT teachers did not find Scratch an appropriate tool for producing high-level programming products, they thought in their future professional lives they could teach how to write long and complex programs with Scratch because it provided them with visualized code structures along with their relationships. According to the preservice IT teachers, Scratch was exciting and they felt more enthusiastic compared to the other programming courses as Scratch supports a wide range of different types of activities that appeal to them. For example, applications could be created easily by dragging and dropping blocks from the palette and assembling them like in solving puzzles. The environment eliminates syntax errors and gives immediate visual feedback. In this regard, one participant stated that “I find Scratch similar to the puzzles we used to solve in our childhood in that you drag and drop pieces and if they do not fit, you try again. Besides, we do not make the syntax errors we often make while learning programming.” All these properties of Scratch may have had a positive impact on the preservice IT teachers’ views towards programming. They thought that they could prepare programs more easily and faster with Scratch and they became more eager to teach programming concepts. In addition, the preservice IT teachers thought that they felt more motivated to teach and learn programming and their negative attitude towards programming also changed after the Scratch programming experience. One participant stated that “My motivation to teach and learn about computer programming has increased after Scratch programming course.” As part of the course, they created stories and developed educational games of their own choice using Scratch. During this process, they performed several small tasks to reach the ultimate goal; and they prepared their games on their own without any assistance from their instructors or fellows. One participant stated that “Developing my own game as part of the project encouraged me to spare more time and effort on it as well as conducting more detailed research.” All of these helped them gain a sense of accomplishment. As a result, the preservice IT teachers expressed the view that they would most likely prefer Scratch programming environments to teach programming skills in their own courses as IT teachers after graduation. Conversely, few of the preservice IT teachers mentioned some deficiencies of the Scratch programming course as well. For example, according to them, the Scratch platform could be used only with students who are novice in programming, and a person already familiar with programming concepts and tools cannot become an expert in programming using only Scratch. Also, they thought that in the Scratch interface students do not see or write any programming codes, and therefore, programming on the Scratch platform is different from programming using other more common programming languages and tools. Consequently, they felt that students with Scratch experience might have difficulties in adapting to other programming tools. Also, they criticized the tool in that they could not prepare any executable programs and their projects always required the Scratch platform to run except for the web applications. Finally, they stated that while writing long and complex games, they sometimes encountered some meaningless errors and the tool did not support high resolution graphical components such as pictures or videos. Discussion Computer programming is considered a very important competence that is usually quite difficult to develop. Teaching computer programming to especially beginner programmers needs to C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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overcome several obstacles, among which are difficulties encountered in comprehending programming concepts and dealing with syntactical problems. To overcome these obstacles and increase students’ interest in programming courses, several visual programming environments have been proposed. One of them is the Scratch programming environment that offers innovative programming techniques and facilitates easy development of animations, interactive stories and games (Fesakis & Fesakis, 2009; Meerbaum-Salant et al, 2010; Ozoran et al, 2012). In this study, the effects of using Scratch in an instructional technology undergraduate course on the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards programming were analyzed. According to the results of this study, programming with the Scratch platform seemed to have a significant overall impact on the preservice IT teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards programming. There were significant changes in their self-efficacy perceptions regarding complex programming tasks after their Scratch programming experience. Besides, even though there were no changes in their self-efficacy perceptions regarding simple programming tasks, they believed that they could perform simple programming tasks easily with Scratch programming as well. This discrepancy might be due to the fact that they had already taken programming courses and knew these simple tasks at both points of pretest and posttest. Also, Scratch made the preservice IT teachers think more positively towards writing a long and complex program whereas they were not as confident in producing high-level or professional programming products. Similarly, educators agreed that it is not easy to become expert programmers and there is a generally accepted belief that it takes about 10 years of experience (Kaucic & Asic, 2011). Furthermore, the preservice IT teachers agreed that Scratch is a useful visual tool to teach and study programming, and through Scratch programming novice programmers can have opportunities to understand concepts such as logical structures, variables, event-driven processing, debugging or the like more easily. This finding is consistent with the findings of several researchers (Kalelioglu & Gulbahar, 2014; Maloney et al, 2010; Meerbaum-Salant et al, 2010; Ozoran et al, 2012) who reported that Scratch provides users with a graphic programming language making computer programming accessible to children, adolescents and other novice programmers. The results of the study showed that Scratch programming changed the preservice IT teachers’ attitudes towards programming. Especially, their negative feelings such as anxiety due to the challenges of programming changed into feelings of relief and accomplishment. Also, Scratch excited them since programming in Scratch was easy to understand and its interface allowed them to learn concepts without making syntax errors. As a result, the Scratch environment could improve their levels of motivation, engagement, and confidence in programming. These results are important in that there is evidence in the literature that some of the main difficulties faced in learning computer programming are lack of motivation and negative attitudes towards programming (Korkmaz, 2012; Korkmaz & Altun, 2013). In this respect, Scratch proves to be a visual programming language that helps preservice IT teachers to create their own applications, simulations and games without a deep knowledge of computer programming, which have already been found in other studies as well. Ozoran et al (2012) believed that in a game like environment, students spent more enjoyable time and preparing their own projects also encouraged them to spend more time on their preparations for the programming course. Similarly, Claypool (2013) pointed out that game development is an effective approach for motivating learners to learn both beginner and advanced computer science topics. In several studies, Scratch was examined for its use as a game construction tool, and the researchers agreed that Scratch helped students prepare animations and games, and also they were able to make progress and learn some programming concepts (Ozoran et al, 2012; Wilson, Hainey & Connolly, 2013). In this study, the preservice IT teachers saw the value and usefulness of the teaching content created by Scratch programming. Even though their negative thoughts regarding the necessity of C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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programming did not change after their Scratch programming experience, the preservice IT teachers acknowledged that Scratch had a positive effect on their views about its technological and pedagogical value, and they showed their intentions for future use. To summarize, Scratch programming could be one of the ways for teaching computational skills and creative thinking. Likewise, in the literature, researchers suggest that we could enhance teachers’ ICT capacity for the 21st century learning environment using visual programming languages such as the Scratch platform (Kim, Choi, Han & So, 2012). Teachers can use Scratch for teaching programming concepts and also help their students improve their problem solving and creative thinking skills. The preservice IT teachers also mentioned some deficiencies and inadequacies of the Scratch platform in the course even though they expressed several advantages of it. According to them, Scratch is a useful tool for programming but it also has limitations. Some of these limitations include being appropriate only for beginner programmers, not supporting any programming codes or high-resolution pictures and videos. According to these results, Scratch has its own drawbacks, as it is the case with other technologies, but could be adapted depending on the programming course in mind with a consideration of these limitations. Conclusion and recommendations Programming is known for its complexity and difficulty, and many students in programming courses might have difficulties in acquiring the necessary competencies. Recently, visual programming environments have been proposed to overcome these challenges and Scratch, one such example, is gaining more attention. For the purposes of this study, the programming concepts were taught with the support of the Scratch platform and the results showed that the Scratch platform seemed to have a significant overall impact on the preservice IT teachers’ selfefficacy perceptions and attitudes towards programming. Similarly, important insights and hopeful findings have been revealed about the use of Scratch in the process of teaching and learning programming skills and concepts in the literature. Researchers have agreed that Scratch helps students to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively. Especially, it helps younger students develop the essential 21st century skills such as problem solving, collaboration and creativity (Maloney et al, 2010; Meerbaum-Salant et al, 2010; Ozoran et al, 2012). Overall, the preservice IT teachers expressed the opinion that Scratch could be an educational programming language to help students learn programming by drag-and-drop coding blocks and remixing various media such as images, sounds and texts. They were found to be eager to use Scratch in their future career. In this respect, it would be interesting to design longitudinal studies or follow-up studies that can expand beyond the undergraduate years or follow students up on placement or during their practicum to observe how the changes in their attitudes would be reflected in their own teaching. Based on these results, it would also be advisable to redesign programming courses using Scratch to promote computational skills and creative thinking for the beginner programmers. Even though the results of this study may motivate instructors and administrators to consider using the Scratch platform in programming courses, one needs to be cautious in generalizing these findings to other courses since the sample of this study was relatively small and the study was conducted in a specific undergraduate course at a single university. There is still much to be learned about what types of methodologies would fit best while using Scratch in programming courses and it may be interesting to observe teachers’ and students’ behaviors while using the Scratch programming environment with students at different levels. Finally, since Scratch was the only programming platform used as part of the course mentioned in this study, a recommendation for further studies would be to incorporate other similar tools C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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such as Small Basic or Alice which might compensate for some of the limitations of Scratch and compare the findings on students’ views about programming. Statements on open data, ethics and conflict of interest The data in this study is openly available on request to the author. The research was carried out after the approval of the university and the course instructors. There is no conflict of interest in this study. References Akcaoglu, M. (2014). Learning problem-solving through making games. Educational Technology Research & Development, 62, 5, 583–600. Akpinar, Y. & Altun, Y. (2014). The requirements of programming education in the information society schools. Elementary Education Online, 13, 1, 1–4. Retrieved August 02, 2015, from http://ilkogretimonline.org.tr/vol13say1/v13s1dy1.pdf Altun, A. & Mazman, S. G. (2012). Developing computer programming self-efficacy scale. Journal of Measurement and Evaluation in Education and Psychology, 3, 2, 297–308. Baser, M. (2013). Developing attitude scale toward computer programming. The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies, 6, 6, 199–215. Baytak, A. & Land, S. M. (2011). An investigation of the artifacts and process of constructing computers games about environmental science in a fifth grade classroom. Educational Technology Research & Development, 59, 765–782. Cakiroglu, U., Sari, E. & Akkan, Y. (2011). The view of the teachers about the contribution of teaching programming to the gifted students in the problem solving. Paper presented at 5th International Computer & Instructional Technologies Symposium, Elazig, Turkey: Firat University. Choi, H. (2013). Learners’ reflections on computer programming using Scratch: Korean primary pre-service teachers’ perspective. 10th International Conference for Media in Education 2012 (ICoME), 22–24 August 2012, Beijing Normal University, China. Claypool, M. (2013). Dragonfly: strengthening programming skills by building a game engine from Scratch. Computer Science Education, 23, 2, 112–137. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Erdogan, Y., Aydin, E. & Kabaca, Y. T. (2008). Exploring the psychological predictors of programming achievement. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 35, 3, 264–270. Fesakis, G. & Serafeim, K. (2009). Influence of the familiarization with Scratch on future teachers’ opinions and attitudes about programming and ICT in education. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 258–262). New York: ACM. Kalelioglu, F. & Gulbahar, Y. (2014). The effects of teaching programming via Scratch on problem solving skills: a discussion from learners’ perspective. Informatics in Education, 13, 1, 33–50. Kaucic, B. & Asic, T. (2011). Improving introductory programming with Scratch? In Proceeding of the 34th MIPRO International Conference (pp. 1095–1100). Opatija, Croatia: IEEE. Ke, F. (2014). An implementation of design-based learning through creating educational computer games: a case study on mathematics learning during design and computing. Computers & Education, 73, 1, 26–39. Kim, H., Choi, H., Han, J. & So, H. (2012). Enhancing teachers’ ICT capacity for the 21st century learning environment: three cases of teacher education in Korea. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28, 6, 965–982. Korkmaz, O. (2012). The impact of critical thinking and logical-mathematical intelligence on algorithmic design skills. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 46, 2, 173–193. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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