Learn to program in preschool: Analysis with the participation scale

Abstract

Kids Media Lab research project: technologies and learning of pre-school programming is part of a post-doctoral research at the University of Minho (Portugal), since September 2015. Educators and children involved in the research belong to 5 districts of Portugal (Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Porto and Viseu). The main objective of the research is to understand how children learn to program at pre-school age. The research followed a qualitative methodology based on case studies and the first data collection conducted during the 2016/2017 school year. The activities were carried out in 5 schools, with 114 children, of which 71 were the sample of this research. In the data collected we used Involvement Scale for Young Children, a grid validated by the Ministry of Education in Portugal. The results show a very active participation of children and educators, with great effort and learning, in several curricular areas, through computational thinking activities, programming and robotics. It is concluded that the participation of children was generally above level 4, on a scale of 1 to 5. The motivation in all the activities was always a constant and allowed learning in various curricular areas.