Comparative experiment of the effects of unplugged and plugged-in programming on computational thinking in primary school students: A perspective of multiple influential factors

Recently, the development of computational thinking (CT) skills has become widespread in the whole world. There is a consensus to develop students' CT skills through unplugged and pluggedin programming. However, the choice of programming approaches taught in schools is arbitrary and few studies have compared the effectiveness differences between unplugged and plugged-in programming. This study aimed to explore the differences between unplugged and plugged-in programming in developing CT skills of students in Grades 1-2 students. It also explored the joint effects of students' gender, programming experience, programming interest, and programming confidence with different programming approaches on CT skills. The quasi-experimental research approach was used to conduct 10 weeks of unplugged, plugged-in, and regular programming activities with 124 Grades 1-2 students. The results found that unplugged programming promoted CT skills more in the early primary grades than plugged-in programming. We found that boys and students with programming experience in unplugged group performed significantly better in CT skills than in plugged-in group. Moreover, the improvement of CT skills of students in unplugged group was positively correlated with the level of their programming interest and programming confidence. However, these were not observed in plugged-in group. The results of this study can provide precise guidance for teaching CT skills to early primary school students and provide references for CT education.