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Using Scratch to Improve Learning Programming in College Students: A Positive Experience from a Non-WEIRD Country

2021; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 10; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/electronics10101180

2079-9292

J. Cobo, Amilkar Puris, Pavel Novoa‐Hernández, Águeda Parra Jiménez, Jesús Moreno-León, David Benavides,

Educational Games and Gamification

Teaching computer programming is a real challenge in the State University of Milagro (UNEMI), located in one of the least-developed zones in Ecuador, a non-WEIRD country (WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). Despite the application of various learning strategies, the historical pass rate does not exceed 43%. To solve this problem, we have relied on visual programming languages, specifically Scratch. Scratch is an open source software to learn programming that has a strong assumption of the benefits of community work. A quasi-experiment conducted with 74 undergraduate students during the first semester of CS showed that: (1) Both groups (control and experimental) are homogeneous in terms of their demographic characteristics, previous academic performance and motivation (expectations) concerning the course; (2) Scratch is strongly accepted by students in the experimental group and concerning the learning process, both groups showed similar levels of satisfaction; (3) the experimental group showed a pass rate four times higher than the control group; (4) in general, student success is associated with having learned programming with Scratch. While limited, our results are an important step in our road to improve the learning of programming in a low social status area of Ecuador.