How kids manage self-directed programming projects: Strategies and structures

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: A variety of self-directed opportunities to learn how to program are available to kids. But how do kids manage the motivational and cognitive challenges of creating projects? Methods: I examined this question in the context of kids working at home with the Scratch programming environment, based on thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 young creators discussing their project development processes. Findings: Ten strategies were central to kids’ progress with their projects: experimenting, planning, compromising, persevering, taking a break, asking for help, studying projects, adapting projects, creating with others, and helping others learn. Drawing on structuration theory, which frames an individual’s purposeful actions as connected to the internal and external structures to which they have access, I recast these kids’ strategies as connected to three key structures—personal interests, access to others, and time—with both enabling and inhibiting effects. Contribution: This study contributes to decades-long conversations about self-directed learning, offering a new view into the relationship between structure and self-direction by applying structuration theory to informal computer science learning. It offers a set of structures to consider when designing in support of self-direction, and acknowledges the prior problem-solving strategies that learners may bring to new areas of learning.