Changing Computer Programming Education: The Dinosaur That Survived in School: An Explorative Study about Educational Issues Based on Teachers' Beliefs and Curriculum Development in Secondary School

Abstract

According to teachers, the computer programming education dependence on students' logical and analytical abilities (even before the course starts). A majority of teachers also perceive their pedagogy as non-sufficient for students' learning. The paper unravels two types of instruction at upper secondary school, one which emphasizes individual work with programming languages assisted by a teacher, and one which emphasizes students' experiences of learning concepts. Two types of instruction that corresponds to the existence of two groups of teachers during the 1980s, the defenders who perceived learning as based on repeating sequences in a behavioristic manner, and partisans who perceived learning as based on discovery and self-teaching. The paper suggests that instructional design has remained the same, since the beginning of the 1970s, which could be the rationales for the difficulties in learning and teaching computer programming.