Treffer: Exploring the Achievement and Motivation of Learning a Text Programming Language among Elementary School Students in the Republic of Serbia.

The introduction of Informatics and Computing as a compulsory subject for students from the fifth to the eighth grade of elementary school, and programming as a basic content of the curriculum represents a major advancement in elementary education in the Republic of Serbia. In this study we conducted research on 58 primary school students in the sixth grade. In the 2016/17 school year, students studied the programming language Scratch, and in the school year 2017/18, they learned the Python programming language. The programming courses took place once a week (45 minutes) over 17 weeks. This study aimed to monitor the flow of learning visual and textual programming language following the new elementary school curriculum in Republic of Serbia, that is, the achievement and motivation of students to continue learning programming. The research instrument used was a questionnaire. The results of this study showed that it was easier for students to master the visual programming language Scratch than the textual programming language Python. However, the research results show that algorithmic way of thinking and motivation to learn by programming a text language are satisfactory, given that students have not had previous experience with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uvođenje informatike i računarstva kao obveznoga predmeta za učenike od petog do osmog razreda osnovne škole te programiranja kao osnovnoga sadržaja kurikula predstavlja veliki iskorak u osnovnom obrazovanju u Republici Srbiji. U ovom radu provodeno je istraživanje na N = 58 učenika osnovnih škola šestog razreda. U školskoj godini 2016./17. učenici su učili programski jezik Scratch, a u školskoj godini 2017./18. učili su programski jezik Python. Tečajevi programiranja realizirali su se jednom tjedno (45 minuta) tijekom 17 tjedana. Cilj je ove studije pratiti tijek učenja vizualnoga i tekstualnoga programskog jezika sljedeći novi OŠ kurikul u Republici Srbiji te istražiti postignuće i motivaciju učenika za nastavak učenja programiranja. Korišteni istraživački instrument bio je upitnik. Rezultati ovoga istraživanja pokazali su da je učenicima bilo lakše svladati vizualni programski jezik Scratch nego tekstualni programski jezik Python. Međutim, rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da su algoritamski način razmišljanja i motivacija za učenje programiranjem tekstualnoga jezika zadovoljavajući s obzirom na to da učenici s tim nisu imali prethodno iskustvo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]