Evaluating the Swedish National Agency for Education’s Programming Curriculum for Elementary School Third-Graders

• Main Authors: Erfani Torbaghani, Ramtin, Luthman, Felix
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: KTH, Skolan för elektroteknik och datavetenskap (EECS) 2019
• Subjects: Gamification; Programming Education; Swedish Elementary School; Programming for children; Motivation; Self Determination Theory; Swedish National Agency for Education; Turtle-Programming; Step-by-step instructions; Computer and Information Sciences; Data- och informationsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-260241

In 2018 the government of Sweden decided to include programming in elementary school. Therefore, the purpose of this report was to investigate whether or not the current Swedish third-grade programming curriculum was appropriate or not, and also to evaluate the viability of including a few additional programming concepts in the teaching material for grade three. To achieve this goal, a game incorporating Gamification was developed in order to assist in the teaching of these concepts, as well as the current curriculum, to a group of third-graders from a swedish school. There were 87 participants introduced to the different programming concepts by playing the game during theoretical lectures. The results suggests that the current curriculum can be expanded upon, and also that the additional concepts all seemed to be viable extensions. However, we believe that more research needs to be conducted in order to draw any definite conclusions. ===  År 2018 beslutade Sveriges regering att inkludera programmering i grundskolan. Syftet med denna rapport var därför att undersöka huruvida den nuvarande svenska programmeringskriterierna för årskurs tre är lämplig eller inte, samt att utvärdera möjligheten att inkludera några ytterligare programmeringskoncept i undervisningen för årskurs tre. För att uppnå detta mål utvecklades ett spel som innefattade Spelifiering (engelska: Gamification) för att underlätta undervisningen av dessa begrepp, såväl som den aktuella läroplanen, till en grupp av tredjeklassare från en svensk skola. Det var 87 deltagare som introducerades till de olika programmeringskoncepten genom att spela spelet under teoretiska föreläsningar. Resultaten tyder på att den nuvarande läroplanen kan utökas med koncepten som undersöks i denna studie. Vi tror emellertid att mer forskning måste genomföras för att dra några konkreta slutsatser.