The Effect of Unplugged and Plugged-in Programming with Influencing Factor of Collaborative versus Individual Work regarding the Impact on Computational Thinking in Preschooler

Integrating computational thinking (CT) into curricula challenges educators and researchers to reflect on effective pedagogy for successful classroom implementation. This identifies the importance for developing CT in young children but also the remaining knowledge gap in this respect. In particular, how to organize the provision regarding CT development and what infant school children can learn with and from each other in the process is still little explored. Moreover, to what extent such orientation when applying either plugged-in or unplugged programming environments can generate differences in yields. Therefore, a quasi-experimental comparative intervention study was conducted among one hundred and forty-seven preschoolers aged four to six years originating from Belgium to examine the effect of a plugged-in versus unplugged programming approach on CT development, and to what extent the conditions of collaborative versus individual work are an influencing factor. To assess development on CT, a pre-test-post-test design was adopted, using the validated Beginners Computational Thinking test (BCTt). The study included eight interventions of 30-min each spread over six weeks. Unplugged interventions were conducted by applying SmartGames through board games, and plugged-in interventions by applying Bee-Bot-robotics programming tasks. Our results indicate that both programming interventions in preschoolers significantly improved CT development. Unplugged programming activities in general seem to be more effective in promoting CT development. The impact of collaborative or individual work within both intervention conditions depended on CT (sub)skills to be developed. To more accurately identify the impact of collaborative programming in preschoolers, a long-term follow-up study with more participants is recommended.