Abstrakt
The authors conducted a case study focussed on discovering how pupils of primary school (especially Year 3, 4 and 5) acquire, use and understand some programming conditional statements and loops (IF-THEN, IF-THEN-ELSE; REPEAT/ REPEAT-UNTIL). Programming conditional statements are undoubtedly one of the fundamental algorithmic concepts that pupils will need to understand and use in programming and algorithmic thinking development.
How can pupils apply them in programming? Does it make sense to introduce these programming conditional statements into programming activities in primary education? The research was carried out in 2017/18 at a small village school among 31 pupils (17 girls and 14 boys) of Year 3, 4 and Year 5 during 16 lessons of a compulsory subject "Work with a computer". Pupils usually worked in groups of three or four.
The activities were designed in accordance with a proposal of requirements for algorithm skills and programming development in primary school education. The research was organised into four phases: (i) Preparatory phase (out of school), (ii) CSunplugged activities with a special set of paper cards and LEGO toys, (iii) Activities in a virtual environment Code.org, and (iv) Testing acquired skills and knowledge.