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Fourth Grade Students Reading Block-Based Programs: Predictions, Visual Cues, and Affordances

Published: 09 August 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Visual block-based programming environments allow elementary school students to create their own programs in ways that are more accessible than in textual programming environments. These environments help students write code by removing syntax errors and reducing typing. Students create code by dragging, dropping, and snapping constructs together (e.g. blocks) that are organized by lists, colors, shape, images, etc. However, programming in visual block-based environments is not always simple; in fact, it can become complex quickly. In addition to elements that create code, the visual aspects of these environments provide readers information about what happens, when, and how. Here, we focus on how students used visual cues when reading programs in our block-based programming environment, LaPlaya, a variant of Scratch. Specifically we identified the visual cues students noticed and acted upon. These included not only those that were intended by designers (perceptible affordances), but also those that were not intended by designers (false affordances). Through a detailed content analysis of 13 focus groups with fourth graders we created an initial taxonomy of visual cues in our programming environment and explored how students used these cues to make predictions about provided code, and the types of affordances such cues offered students.

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  1. Fourth Grade Students Reading Block-Based Programs: Predictions, Visual Cues, and Affordances

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      ICER '15: Proceedings of the eleventh annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research
      July 2015
      300 pages
      ISBN:9781450336307
      DOI:10.1145/2787622
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 09 August 2015

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      Author Tags

      1. block based languages
      2. computer science education
      3. elementary school
      4. graphical programming
      5. novice programming environments

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      • National Science Foundation CE21 Award

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      ICER '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 25 of 96 submissions, 26%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 189 of 803 submissions, 24%

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      Cited By

      View all
      • (2025)Teacher Decisions and Perspectives in Scratch TIPP&SEE ImplementationProceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701885(694-700)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
      • (2023)Applying Design Thinking to Enhance Programming Education in Vocational and Compulsory Secondary SchoolsApplied Sciences10.3390/app13231279213:23(12792)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2023
      • (2023)Fostering Interdisciplinary Learning for Elementary Students Through Developing Interactive Digital StoriesInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-47658-7_5(50-67)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2023
      • (2022)Case Study: Design Strategies for Enabling Visual Application Blocks of Bluetooth LibraryIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.317531610(52630-52654)Online publication date: 2022
      • (2021)A Phenomenographic Analysis of College Students’ Conceptions of and Approaches to Programming Learning: Insights From a Comparison of Computer Science and Non-Computer Science ContextsJournal of Educational Computing Research10.1177/073563312199595059:7(1370-1400)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2021
      • (2021)Supporting Interactive Storytelling with Block-Based Narrative ProgrammingInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_41(416-424)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2021
      • (2021)Learning Domain Knowledge Using Block-Based Programming: Design-Based Collaborative LearningEnd-User Development10.1007/978-3-030-79840-6_8(119-135)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2021
      • (2020)Toward a Block-Based Programming Approach to Interactive Storytelling for Upper Elementary StudentsInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-030-62516-0_10(111-119)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2020
      • (2019)The Appropriateness of Scratch and App Inventor as Educational Environments for Teaching Introductory Programming in Primary and Secondary EducationEarly Childhood Development10.4018/978-1-5225-7507-8.ch039(797-819)Online publication date: 2019
      • (2019)Computational Thinking and Robotics: A Teaching Experience in Compulsory Secondary Education with Students with High Degree of Apathy and DemotivationSustainability10.3390/su1118510911:18(5109)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2019
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