Kod som teknisk lösning: en studie om grundskoleelevers uppfattningar av ändamålsenlighet i deras spontana programspråk

This study examines primary school students’ perception of functionality in their spontaneous programminglanguage for controlling a simple robot. Classroom activities were designed in order to create opportunitiesfor the students (year 1 and year 4) to discuss and develop together with their teachers a sharedprogramming language for controlling a simple robot. The students spontaneously used (a) natural language,(b) images or (c) symbols when they created their programming language. The findings show thatthe students primarily perceived a code’s functionality as a question of readability, rather than how wellit fit the purpose of controlling the robot. Possible consequences of the findings for teaching in technologyeducation are discussed.